When my brother (16 yrs my senior) went to vote in the General Election I asked him to put my vote in for Harold Wilson - on his return he confirmed that he'd done it. When he won I was delighted and told all my friends about how I had contributed to the victory. It was about 10 years later when my sister-in-law, in an argument, told me that you have to be 18 to vote. I couldn't believe that my brother had lied to me.

Ant

I haven't seen this variation on the Watergate theme yet:

Like a lot of the others here who were around six or seven years old during Watergate, I had a very literal interpretation about some kind of "Water Gate" that was broken, clogged or overflowing in some way. I put that together with all the "bugs" I kept hearing about and thought that if you turned on a sink faucet bugs would come pouring out. I only remember being afraid of the faucets for a day or two (it was probably only an hour, lol!) before my parents straightened it all out for me but I I still think about it every time I hear the word Watergate.

JS

I belived that in order to be President you had to run a race and I'd alaways want to see the race but no one would Know what I was talking about.

Anon

For ages I used to believe that Tony Blair was the government because evertime I heard Tony Blair, I heard government and everytime I heard government I'd hear Tony Blair

A Nony Mouse

Back when President Bush Sr. was in office I had to be about 5. I remember my dad was watching him make a speech on TV and he started laughing. I asked him why he started to laugh at Bush and he told me, "No reason, he's just a good man." So everytime Bush said something (Even though I had no clue what 'Desert Storm' was or even the 'budget') I laughed at him becuase I thought it would make him more chairismatic....

Mike

I used to believe that everyone in the United States voted using electronic voting booths of the style used here at home (in central New York state). In fact, I believed this until the 2000 presidential election, and was flabbergasted to learn it was not true!

Anon

I heard my parents talking about the upcoming elections in 1976, talking about Carter. Well, in my small world, I thought that Kotter from the tv show Welcome Back, Kotter was running for president.

Anon

for the longest time i thought that Stockwell Day was some kind of holiday about the stock market. but stockwell day was a leader of the canadian alliance (or something). it's not my fault if his name is weird!

mop

That when the labour party won the election labour party ment just a special type of party

Grace Corby

I thought that James E. Carter, Jr. and Jimmy Carter were different people...until my mom pointed out that they were the same.

Anon

When I first 'Homeland Security', I thought that 'Homeland Security' was about securing you home by installing security alarms and surveillance cameras in every room to protect your house from terrorism.

Anon

I thought that the 'Patriot Act' was something to do with patriotism about America

Anon

I used to think the president was the richest person in the country

president's daughter ;)

when I was small I used to believe that the name of the president of a country applied to every other country in the world.For instance I would think of a thing like: America's Bill Clinton,France's bill Clinton,Italy's Bill Clinton.

etoile

One time during the presidential race between George Bush and Al Gore, my friend's parents asked her, "who do you think will win the election?" She said, "I vote for George Washington! I vote for George Washington!" (she was five at the time)

Hannah

I thought the Election Day was a holiday of having sex with someone you love. I misunderstood that holiday as Erection Day.

Anon

i used to think huge sattelite poles that were as tall as bulidlings was were the president wold sit and have his meetings.

Erin

I used to believe that whenever I saw someone that looked like the German Chanceller Schroder they were realy him So I would always say : It is an honor to meet you Mr.Chanceller Sir.
After I finnaly got it into my head that I would never ever have just met Schoeder on the street like that I was a embarresed that I never went out of the house without peeing in my pants.

azeymichi

I'm Spanish, and as soon as I was told that Ronald Reagan spoke English I thought he must be the king of England.

R.A.

When I was about 6 I thought the President got to be President because he was the best human being there was in the whole country and that an election was some kind of beauty contest for men. When the word "Watergate" kept getting mentioned on the TV news I thought it had something to do with a dam (perfectly logical assumption for a 7 year old kid) but when I asked "What's Watergate?" all I got for an answer was " The President told a lie." Somehow I got the notion that if you were President and you told a lie you would have to be killed for the punishment, or sent to jail forever. It took an amazingly long time for me to be completely disabused of this belief; now I take it for granted that the President will always lie because it's what Presidents always do, and what's more, they will always get away with it.

Demitria Monde Thraam