John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

The election of 1959/1960 was one of the closest fought elections

of all time. Although this sounds like a good thing it is not as this

means that just under half of the American voting population did not

want Kennedy to be president of America and this was a an image and

credit problem for Kennedy.

The main reason that Kennedy got into power was because of the black

population. He promised his black voters a civil rights policy and an

end to poverty and segregation. The main problem that he faced on

these fronts was his own party. Kennedy's party was opposed to

spending money on pretty much anything as later he would find out

especially spending money on the black community and if his own party

was opposed to the changes then there was not much chance of the laws

getting passed, this was because his party were democrats. He only had

1% majority vote in congress as a lot of his own party were from the

southern states so were very racist. Also Kennedy promised a war on

poverty but again due to failure of his own party to spend money his

idea of free medical care for the old and those on welfare (Medicare)

was abolished and Kennedy's ideas to raise the minimum wage and

improve education were snatched away. So not only could he not get

anything through in congress but also his supporters were now starting

to turn as he had not delivered his promises.

Another big part of Kennedy's problem was that for a president he was

relatively young and inexperienced so people didn't trust him and

thought that he was naïve, especially with the fear of communism

running wild in the United States as after the Berlin wall incident
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...on growth over the years was because of

people seeing the past through ' Rose coloured glasses.' What I mean

by this is that people see the past better than it was for example you

always remember your childhood memories better than they actually

were, in my eyes I think that the same applies with JFK. Another

reason for the reputation growth was the manner that Kennedy died as

any one that dies in such an inhumane way in front of thousands of

people will get a lot of sympathy a term used at the time after

Kennedy's shooting was "There is a collective nervous breakdown." The

last reason for Kennedy's growth in reputation was that he was given

credit for a large period of liberal politics as when he was in power

although he didn't get done what he wanted to while he was in power

America and Americas population prospered.