John F Kennedy's Campaign Analysis

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: 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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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