My deepest immersion in Republican politics was a crucial step in my becoming a left-winger.

I turned 18 years old in February of 1992 as a senior in high school. It was an election year, and as a confirmed political junkie I was following George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign and the challenge by Bill Clinton, a smooth-talking, Bubba-looking “New Democrat” I didn’t much like. Of course, I considered myself a conservative Republican — that’s how I’d been raised, picking up on the frequent and none-too-subtle hints that movement conservatism was the only political stance truly compatible with the restored Gospel of our family’s Mormon faith.

I was excited to register to vote as a Republican. My dad had been involved in state politics for several years, and this year he had been elected an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention, to be held in Houston in mid-August. He somehow got the idea that I should go with him to the convention. My parents had never taken any of us kids on any kind of long trip one-on-one, and I think my dad saw this as a chance to spend some time together before I headed off to college two weeks after the convention. He also wanted me to have a positive experience of Republican politics before I left home, even though I was heading off to BYU, a campus that’s not exactly known as a hotbed of radicalism.

So we found a discount ticket on Southwest Airlines, and on August 17 (or so Wikipedia tells me) I found myself swimming in Houston’s summer humidity, amazed that the apparently cloudless sky contained not a hint of blue in all its haze. My dad and I drove to the convention site: the Astrodome. Half the stadium had been curtained off, and the spectator galleries in the seats above the convention floor never seemed entirely full, but it was still an awesome sight.

My memories of the exact look of the stage, the patriotic backdrops and Jumbotrons, and the house band (I think there was one) have all blurred with imagery from dozens of other party conventions. What stands out was the television presence. All the major networks had booths just above floor level, and television cameras seemed to be everywhere. And what was so cool, for my nerdy, provincial 18-year-old self, was that you could look into the booths and see Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather or Ted Koppel doing their newscasts, right there live. I wasn’t so much impressed that newsworthy things were happening as that famous anchormen were reporting on them.

There were political celebrities along with media celebrities. The President wouldn’t make an appearance until Wednesday or Thursday night, but I spotted Barbara Bush in the VIP section. I can’t understand it now, but at the time nobody seemed aware of what an awful person she was; her white hair and pearls were enough to charm me, at least, into thinking of her as a kind National Grandma. I didn’t meet her, but I did shake hands with Senator Pete Domenici at a cocktail party and chat with the Interior Secretary, Manuel Lujan, on the convention floor.

And then there were the delegates and the guests of the delegates, thousands of committed and politically active Republicans from all over the country. These were supposed to be my people. And, I suppose, if I hadn’t been there with my dad I would have put some effort into finding some people I had something in common with, although I wonder what kind of future Karl Roves were roaming the convention halls as Young Republicans. As it was, everyone I met was middle-aged or downright old and dressed in either conservative church/corporate drag (suits for men, flowered dresses for women) or tacky Midwestern vacation clothes — lots of teal for the women, khakis for the men, sun visors all around. (I was no more fashionable, wearing my high-school graduation suit or khakis and polo shirts.)

And little red cowboy hats. There was a platform battle afoot. Someone had noticed that the majority of Americans favor a woman’s right to choose and thought it would be a good idea to soften the language on abortion. This didn’t play well with the base, which rallied to defeat the proposal and then stayed riled up. One of the big anti-choice groups bought thousands upon thousands of little red cowboy hats, stuck pro-life stickers on the fronts, and passed them out to the faithful. They seemed popular — at one point it seemed that about a third of the people there were wearing them, indicating not only strong pro-life views but a willingness to put all considerations of style and personal dignity aside to support a cause. I was pro-life, too, since that’s what I thought God wanted me to be, but the red-hat people had a self-righteous, zealous vibe that kind of freaked me out.

These days, political conventions aren’t events where consequential decisions are made, like they were even into the 1970s; rather, they are carefully choreographed media spectacles. One pervasive technique of showmanship in the ’92 convention was politically charged country music: nationalistic in message and culturally significant in appealing to the NASCAR base. Judging by audience response, the musical highlight was Lee Greenwood performing his “God Bless the USA,” which had been the unofficial theme song of the previous year’s Gulf War. (Richard Nixon, speaking to reporters later in 1992, said that Bush should have kept that war going longer, through the election, a strategy that worked well for Nixon in ’72.) We were also treated to dozens of country acts I’d never heard of performing second-tier heartland anthems.

And of course, conventions are mostly about speeches. I remember only two of them and am pleased to see that Wikipedia does, too. Pat Buchanan spoke on the opening night of the convention, full of the venomous resentment and dishonesty that have been the lifeblood of his entire career. “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America,” he said. “It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.” The bulk of the speech was devoted to painting Bill and Hillary and Al as gay-loving anti-family radical feminist treehuggers. I may have considered myself a conservative Republican, but I’d never signed up for soft fascism, and Buchanan’s cynical hatemongering was easy enough to see through. (I was always uncomfortable with anti-gay rhetoric, although it took me a few more years to articulate why.)

The other memorable moment onstage was the the last major public speech of Ronald Reagan. Keep in mind that in 1992 the Cold War had just ended, and most of us in the convention hall gave Reagan a lot of the credit. When he emerged on the stage, only slightly frailer than when he left office four years earlier, the place went nuts with an ovation that lasted at least five minutes. A laugh line early in the speech had us laughing for two solid minutes. And Reagan played masterfully to the adoration of the crowd. Even now, as a committed Reagan detractor, I’m glad I had the chance to see him do what he did better than anyone else in the business: hit his mark, read his lines convincingly, and smile reassuringly for the cameras.

My dad and I left Houston the afternoon of the last day of the convention, so we didn’t see Bush’s speech. I’d been inspired by the speeches I’d heard to work for the Bush campaign when I got to college, not really thinking that there’s not much need for, say, a get-out-the-vote operation for Republicans in a general election in Utah.

I wouldn’t end up joining the College Republicans, but not because I didn’t see a need for their work. Just three weeks after I cheered wildly, with misted eyes, for Ronald Reagan’s last speech, I started to figure out that God really didn’t care if I was a conservative or a liberal, a Republican or a Democrat. And with that imagined constraint removed (it would be several more years before I figured out that the very idea of God was another imagined constraint), the part of me that was skeeved out by the red cowboy hats and angered by Pat Buchanan’s performance took over. In short order, I was part of the liberal Democratic minority on campus.

The next summer, home from my freshman year, I had a heated argument with my dad about politics that started when I objected to some remark my mom tossed off about the awfulness of Hillary Clinton. I was my own person, with my own opinions and the ability to articulate and defend them. I’m not sure if this is what my dad intended when he invited me along to Houston, or if it’s the outcome he wanted to forestall. Either way, I’m grateful to him for the part he played.