John F Kennedy's Campaign Analysis

: The 1960’S AMERICA COLD WAR RACISM AFFLUENCE ZENITH PIVOTAL POTENTIAL FOR CONFLICT. AN ELECTION WAS FAST APPROACHING, SEEMED LIKE A PRETTY SET IN STONE CHOICE FOR LEADER. BUT HEY JFK WAS A SUPER BABE, MILLIONAIRE, AND WAS FINNA GET THE PRESIDENT SEAT WHICH WAS UP FOR GRABS. YO HE WAS AN UNDERDOG THOUGH. John F. Kennedy made a remarkable and courageous effort during the campaign of 1960. A Massachusetts-born Democrat, not only was Kennedy the youngest person ever to run for the presidency, but he was a Catholic with new and different political ideas campaigning against Vice President Richard Nixon, who had the upperhand because of his political experience. Thus, Kennedy created a campaign specifically for his time, one that appealed to the

youth, returning veterans, and people yearning for change. It was not just the Kennedy fortune or connections that led to Kennedy to win the election of 1960, but Kennedy, his family and his political team successful shaping of the public’s view of Kennedy. Thanks to his father’s political connections and drive, Kennedy was able to enter as a promising political figure in the election of 1960. In his pursuit of the presidency, JFK would ultimately have to overcome the prejudice against Catholics and appeal to the public by utilizing modern technology to emphasize Kennedy’s image of youthful charisma and idealism. While championing novelty and change in America, JFK managed to transform growing Cold War tensions as a dig against the Republican campaign, and possible criminal connections, Kennedy’s team, privileged family, and JFK himself created a well-orchestrated campaign that landed him in office
From the beginning, Kennedy was primed, perhaps even destined, for a future in politics courtesy of his persuasive and determined father, Joe Kennedy. At the end of 1937, Joe Kennedy was named British Ambassador; as America approached war, Joe Kennedy began earning him a reputation as an anti-Semite and Hitler appeaser, along with the public idea that he was a womanizer and might’ve had ties to organized crime (pbs.org). While in England with his father, Kennedy wrote his senior essay for Harvard University on England's lack of readiness for WWII; with his father’s financial backing and help from a NY Times columnist, it was published and became a bestseller under the title Why England Slept (history.net). After he graduated in June of 1940, JFK (despite his ill health which had plagued him since childhood) and thanks to his dad’s finagling, was eventually admitted and assigned to serve in the South Pacific where Kennedy heroically saved his surviving crew when his ship was sunk in 1943 (jfklibrary.org). The war ended in 1945, but when the oldest son, Joseph Jr., was killed on a bombing mission in Europe, Joe Kennedy shifted his aspirations onto John and began grooming him for the presidency (biography.com). His father convinced him to run for Congress in Massachusetts' eleventh congressional district, where he won in 1946 (jfklibrary.org). He then served six years in the U.S. House of Representatives, earning a reputation as a somewhat conservative Democrat and in 1952, he ran for the U.S. Senate and won. Kennedy’s popularity was growing and he was almost picked to run for vice president in the election of 1956 but decided to wait until the next election to run for the presidency. (millercenter.org)
In 1950, only 11% of Americans owned a TV set, but by the time the election of 1960 rolled around, 88% of Americans had a TV set that broadcast to over 60 million Americans or more (Kennedy, Cohen “American Pageant” 867). JFK took advantage of these debates, using them as opportunities to show himself off to the press and the American people, whereas Nixon didn’t realize that American people watched television on average from 4-5 hours a day (Goldman 67). Nixon, an experienced debater wanted a single "knockout blow” debate, whereas Kennedy wanted five; they settled on four. (maryfell.org) The debates reinforced the importance of physical appearance in the television age; many viewers found Kennedy relaxed, attractive, and healthy compared to haggard-looking Nixon, who had refused makeup and was recovering from knee surgery (Kennedy, Cohen “American Pageant” 867). Additionally, Kennedy more effectively used television as a medium, addressing the camera and the national audience while Nixon followed the more traditional debate style by talking straight to Kennedy. (maryfell.org) Polls taken after the debates revealed that the visual image had greatly influenced the public’s perceptions; those who had listened to the debates on the radio believed that Nixon had won, but those who had watched were more impressed with Kennedy and his charisma (miller.org)
John F. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for the presidency by either party since Al Smith, and was up against the stigma against Roman Catholics, winning the presidency “in spite of rather than because of the fact that he was a Catholic” according to U.S. political scientist Professor V.O. Key Jr. Many Protestants worried about the possibility of a Roman Catholic, who could be a puppet of the Catholic Church, as the nation's President. (CITATION) Kennedy chose to tackle the religious issue openly and directly, giving a series of speeches designed to address any misgivings about his faith and voluntarily subjecting himself to a round of questioning about his views on church-state relations by leading Protestant clergy in Houston (millercenter.org) Kennedy told the Protestant ministers “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute where no Catholic prelate would tell the President how to act” (Goldman, “Portrait of a President” 70). As it would turn out, for the first time in American history a Catholic did well with Protestant voters; in fact, Kennedy ended up with more Protestant votes than Nixon, creating a voter coalition of Catholics, Jews, African Americans, and Protestants. (Goldman, “Portrait of A President 71).
In what was seemingly become a classic Kennedy campaign strategy, Kennedy simultaneously finessed America’s fear of communism and nuclear threats from the Soviet union into pure Kennedy support while undermining how Nixon, his predecessor Eisenhower and the Republican party dealt with foreign affairs. In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth (jfklibrary.org). Kennedy pointed out that because of the Eisenhower administration’s ineptitude that America was “"falling behind the Soviets", appealing to the "tough on the Soviets" with his bashing of Eisenhower for America's lack of leadership (CITATION). Though foreign affairs experience was critical given the looming threat of nuclear apocalypse, JFK had pretty much none yet his charisma and promising demeanor made America believe in him and felt they could trust him representing the US population if he was sitting at a table with Russia. Kennedy warned of the Soviet's growing arsenal of intercontinental missiles and promised to revamp American nuclear forces (jfklibrary.org) The downing of the U2 spy plane over Russian made foreign relations almost nonexistent, Cuba allying with the Soviet Union and brought a new chill in relations between America and the USSR and set the stage for further confrontations that the future president would have to deal with (citation). All of this made the US people believe war with the USSR was inevitable, making people afraid and wanting to head in a newer, safer political direction. (history.com). That appeared to be in Kennedy’s direction, as he continued promising more money for defense spending and American readiness when he charged Eisenhower for allowing a non-existent "missile gap" to develop between the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals. And it was JFK, who during the debates with Nixon, blamed the Eisenhower policy for the loss of Cuba by permitting the establishment of a pro-Soviet government (mcadams.posc.mu.edu).
As the youngest president ever going up against an experienced and established competitor, Kennedy would have to bring vitality, youth, and progressive policies in order to distinguish himself.

During his campaign, Kennedy had promised voters to revive government liberalism, which had withered under Eisenhower, with a new set of reforms collectively called the New Frontier (CITATION). Kennedy spoke of moving aggressively into the new decade, for “the New Frontier is here whether we seek it or not”; he aimed to expand Social Security to benefit more Americans, help the elderly pay their medical costs, fund progressive education, reduce income inequality and raise the national minimum wage (COLD WAR BOOK CITATION) Both candidates sympathized with the plight of African Americans, but failed to provide solutions to the problem (CITATION). However, Kennedy’s appeal to the black came to fruition when Kennedy called Mrs. King directly and offered his sympathy when her husband, Martin Luther King Jr.was arrested in Atlanta for a sit-in; meanwhile, his brother Bobby called the judge in Georgia and King was released on bail a few days

later.
This incident drew little mainstream press, but the African American community was well aware of it. Nixon, eyeing white southern votes, had declined to comment publicly on the arrest and avoided communication with Mrs. King. (Kennedy, Cohen American Pageant 870). The black vote was pivotal in the swing states of Illinois, Michigan and South Carolina that Kennedy carried (pbs.org). Like revered Democrat former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kennedy did extremely well in industrial centers and was widely voted for by workers, Catholics, and African Americans (CITATION).
Ultimately, on November 8, 1960, Kennedy defeated Nixon by a razor-thin margin to become the 35th president of the United States of America, but the morality and legality of the means by which he earned his votes would soon be questioned and puzzled over for years to come.

The race was the closest of the century, with Kennedy receiving only 113,000 votes more than Nixon out of the 68 million ballots cast while his 303-219 electoral-vote margin eclipsed the fact that several states besides Texas and Illinois could have gone either way. (Kennedy, Cohen American Pageant 868). The vote counting in Illinois (where Kennedy won by 9,000 votes) and Texas (where Kennedy won by 46,000 votes) became incredibly controversial, because if Nixon had won those two states, he would have defeated Kennedy by two votes in the Electoral College (blog.constitutioncenter.org) In Illinois, people speculated that Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago and companion of John’s father Joe Kennedy, used his political machine to stuff the ballot box in Cook County (CITATION). Similarly in Texas, there were claims about the influence of Kennedy’s running mate, Lyndon B. Johnson, over that state’s election (CITATION) Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina, 52, in a recent interview claimed that her father told her that Kennedy’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy wanted the Mafia's help in delivering the union vote in the 1960 West Virginia primary against Sen. Hubert Humphrey (CITATION) In an interview with Frank Sinatra’s

daughter Tina, she revealed that JFK’s dad asked had asked her dad to make a request to the Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana to use mafia muscle to aid Kennedy earlier in his career, and had likely aided him again earning votes during the 1960’s campaign (cbsnews.com) Despite all of the rumors and potential scandal, Nixon decided against disputing the voting results, though his supporters cried out for recounts or legal actions in 11 states (CITATION) Nixon received praise for his decision to concede and let the country move on with President Kennedy rather than dividing the country by running a potentially problematic campaign to overturn the results. (Goldman, “Portrait of A President”, 72). Besides Nixon’s considerate decision, courts wouldn’t allow widespread recounts in Illinois and Texas, so in the end there wasn’t any real danger of John F. Kennedy losing the presidency (nytimes.com).
In the end, the election of 1960 was a won by an underdog from Massachusetts with a clever, connected father who groomed John F. Kennedy into an intelligent and charismatic politician that managed to capture American hearts and votes. Manned with a campaign designed that took total advantage of modern technology, overcame religious prejudice, turned national fear into national drive, and allegedly having lowbrow contacts pull some strings, John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States. Once he was elected, Kennedy would go onto create the Peace Corps, fail the Bay of Pigs mission, announce his goal of getting an man on the moon, witness the beginning of the building of Berlin Wall, halt basically all trade with Cuba, navigate the Cuban Missile Crisis, signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and numerous other historically shaping events before his presidency was halted abruptly when he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Nowadays, from historians to politicians to students discuss with admiration the tact, the charm, the strategies that led to the election of the first Catholic president and wonder about what America might look like today had John F. Kennedy survived to be commander in chief another day.