I can remember the latter years of Eisenhower's Presidency but did not know anything about politics at the time. I remember the 1958 election as the first time I knew that the two main parties were the Republicans and the Democrats.
At one point my mother had a copy of Robert Welch's book which accused Eisenhower of being a conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy. My mother had Eisenhower's autograph but destroyed it.
Before that, I sort of knew some stuff, but didn't pay all THAT much attention to politics. I have no idea why, that that election cycle had ALL of the adults talking/discussing/debating and I was fascinated by it all. I read ALL of the political literature that was in my home and paid more attention to the news. Now bear in mind that I was really young...really, really young, but I guess the excitement intrigued me and my mother was well on her way to turning me into the well informed political and news junkie she wanted me to be. :-)
Two things about Ike that really turned me off him: 1) he didn't really stand up against the howling mob, who were, even back then, trashing and harassing Nixon 2) the way he had promised help and backing to Hungary and then hung back and did less than NOTHING, in '56.