Susan Del Percio is a New York-based Republican strategist.The first president I voted for was George Herbert Walker Bush. I was 18. A few months before the election, I had the privilege of meeting the then vice president. It was June 1988, and I was an intern working for his fundraising operation in California. While it was not the last time I met him, that handshake turned out to be the beginning of my career in politics and government.