The Kennedy Half-Century (11 page)

Kennedy also tried to stay out in front of the Catholic issue. In an interview
with
Look
magazine, he expressed his opposition to U.S. diplomatic relations with the Vatican, thereby distancing himself from his father, who was a quiet supporter of such an official attachment. JFK also spoke out against federal aid for religious schools, which was a high priority for the Catholic community.
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At the end of the year, Kennedy overcame a short-lived controversy when a special presidential report showed the strength of U.S. foreign aid programs being undermined by a global population explosion. The report recommended help for those countries that wanted assistance in dealing with “the serious challenge posed by rapidly expanding populations.” Catholic bishops immediately condemned the report’s recommendations, since the bishops viewed birth control as immoral. When asked to weigh in on the issue, Kennedy said that he personally opposed U.S. support for overseas birth control programs, but also that “this was a question for other countries to decide for themselves.” He added that if he won the White House, “he would decide any issue that came before him on this question on the ground of what was best for the interests of the United States.” It was an effective tap dance that bought him time until the controversy died down.
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On January 2, 1960, Kennedy made his candidacy official. Speaking from the Senate Caucus Room, he told the press that he was seeking “the most powerful office in the Free World.” “Through its leadership can come a more vital life for our people,” he said.

In it are centered the hopes of the globe around us for freedom and a more secure life. For it is in the executive branch that the most crucial decisions of this century must be made in the next four years—how to end or alter the burdensome arms race, where Soviet gains already threaten our very existence; how to maintain freedom and order in the newly emerging nations; how to rebuild the stature of American science and education; how to prevent the collapse of our farm economy and the decay of our cities; how to achieve, without further inflation or unemployment, expanded economic growth benefitting all Americans; and how to give direction to our traditional moral purpose, awakening every American to the dangers and opportunities that confront us.

Kennedy would revisit these themes again and again during his campaign. He closed with details on how he would secure his party’s endorsement: “I believe that any Democratic aspirant to this important nomination should be willing to submit to the voters his views, record, and competence in a series
of primary contests. I am therefore now announcing my intention of filing in the New Hampshire primary and I shall announce my plans with respect to the other primaries as their filing dates approach.” In truth, JFK didn’t have a choice; he needed to enter the primaries to prove to his party that he could win in Protestant states. None of the other candidates had this problem.
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With his campaign officially under way, Kennedy began ratcheting up the partisan rhetoric.
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During a speech at the National Press Club in mid-January, he listed the problems that he said had been mishandled by the Eisenhower administration—China, the missile gap, the needs of underdeveloped countries, Berlin, Formosa (today’s Taiwan), NATO, the arms race, and various domestic issues such as education and agriculture.
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This was an era when only sixteen states held presidential primaries (in our century, more than forty do so), and candidates could pick and choose states in which to compete. In February, Kennedy accepted Humphrey’s challenge to compete in the West Virginia primary. As events would show, it was a smart, perhaps essential, political decision. During the same month, he strengthened his prospects in Wisconsin by barnstorming five cities in the north central part of the state and telling farmers there that his vote against the 90-percent-of-parity bill had been a mistake. Humphrey fought back by calling Kennedy a Johnny-come-lately who flip-flopped on farm issues.
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Although Kennedy coasted to victory in the New Hampshire primary in early March, the triumph was seen as little more than a publicity coup—a pat on the back for New England’s favorite son. Kennedy’s next stop, Wisconsin, represented middle America, an area teeming with Protestants, independent shopkeepers, dairy farmers, factory workers, and a hodgepodge of ethnic and religious factions. More important, the state was smack dab in the middle of Humphrey territory. By the spring of 1960, Humphrey, who was Kennedy’s only serious challenger in the Badger State, had represented Minnesota in the Senate for twelve years. As Sorensen later noted, “Minnesota and Wisconsin were distinguishable only by the invisible boundary between them. Both states had a surplus of farm products, a predominance of Protestant German and Scandinavian descendants, and aggressively liberal Democratic parties with farmer-labor backing.” Kennedy’s advisers had been divided over whether he should even run against Humphrey in Wisconsin, where the Minnesota pol “reigned unofficially as a sort of third Wisconsin Senator.” But JFK saw it as a chance to prove to the eastern party bosses that he could garner votes outside New England and ease concerns about his youthfulness and religious affiliation. Of course, the age issue didn’t matter as much as it once might have. The hundreds of thousands of young, victorious World War II vets were brimming with confidence and unwilling to defer to their elders in the same way that prior generations had. All across the country, Young
Turks were running against entrenched politicians. Ironically, Richard Nixon made it easier for JFK to run for high office by winning the vice presidency at the age of thirty-nine. In 1960 Nixon was forty-eight, only five years senior to JFK.
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In the months leading up to the primary, Kennedy campaign workers poured into Wisconsin’s ten congressional districts. Pollster Lou Harris conducted the largest survey ever taken in the state while JFK’s other aides recruited volunteers and lined up key endorsements. Thanks mainly to his father, Kennedy enjoyed the advantages of a large staff and nearly limitless supply of campaign funds here and elsewhere. In addition, appearances with his large, vivacious family attracted swarms of journalists and were people pleasers. Humphrey told the press that he felt like a “corner grocer running against a chain store.”
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Actually, Humphrey had less of a chance in Wisconsin than is commonly supposed. He lacked two critical elements that JFK had in abundance—money and charisma. Robert Drew’s landmark documentary film
Primary
reveals the differences between the two campaigns. In one segment, we see Hubert Humphrey standing on a Wisconsin city sidewalk, handing out business cards to passersby and delivering old-fashioned stump speeches to farmers; in the next, Kennedy is mobbed by autograph seekers and wildly enthusiastic supporters. Drew’s camera documented the changes that were taking place in American life after World War II. Humphrey represented the past, a time when seasoned if dull politicians could run by-the-book, just-the-facts-ma’am campaigns that appealed mostly to voters’ intellect and interests. Kennedy, on the other hand, enabled youth, energy, image, and a sense of possibility to overwhelm other considerations in a new mass marketing era. JFK was also the first presidential candidate to fully grasp the significance of a strategically chosen primary election. Prior to 1960, many politicians thought of primaries as unimportant or even dangerous popularity contests. Harry Truman had once referred to them dismissively as “eyewash.” But thanks to the choices made by Kennedy in 1960, especially Wisconsin and West Virginia, party primaries became critical stepping-stones on the path to the White House, a nearly essential part of the campaign process. Kennedy rewrote the rules of the game.
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According to one of these new rules, presidential candidates had to work like sled dogs when they were on the campaign trail. JFK certainly did so in the seven days leading up to the Wisconsin election. On March 30, he began the day with an eight A.M. press conference at the Northland Hotel in Green Bay. An hour later, he was speaking at a high school in Kaukauna; an hour after that, it was the city hall in Chilton; then on to more speeches and more handshaking in Kiel, Manitowoc, Two Rivers, and Plymouth before ending the day with a reception in Sheboygan and a late-night trip back to Milwaukee.
On April 1, he stumped Mount Horab, Dodgeville, Mineral Point, Darlington, Shullsburg, Argyle, Blanchardville, New Glarus, Monroe, Broadhead, and Beloit. Always energetic, Humphrey hustled as well, but he could not match Kennedy’s personal magnetism.
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On election day, Kennedy captured 56 percent of the popular vote in Wisconsin. However, his margin of victory was derived from a quartet of overwhelmingly Catholic congressional districts; he had fared poorly with Protestants. Though triumphant, Kennedy was actually crestfallen and interpreted the result as proof that he would “have to do it all over again.” “We have to go through every [primary] and win every one of them,” he told his sister, “West Virginia and Maryland and Indiana and Oregon, all the way to the convention.”
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West Virginia’s primary became the most important, mainly because the leading candidates decided they could best make their case in the Mountain State. JFK’s first priority there was to neutralize the Catholic issue. While Kennedy had once led in West Virginia, he had slipped behind Humphrey as the media focused on JFK’s Catholicism in the heavily Protestant state. “I am a Catholic, but the fact that I was born a Catholic, does that mean that I can’t be the president of the United States?” he asked a crowd in Charleston. “I’m able to serve in Congress, and my brother was able to give his life, but we can’t be president?” Many West Virginians felt stereotyped and downtrodden themselves, and they could identify with Kennedy in this respect. Despite the religious question JFK generally received a warm welcome wherever he went in the Mountain State.
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Bill Battle, Kennedy’s campaign manager in West Virginia, reminded voters that JFK was an “Irish Catholic,” not a “Roman Catholic.” “There was always a big round of applause when he mentioned that and everybody would say, ‘Oh! That’s different!’ ” recalled Battle’s widow, Barry.
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Between April 5 and May 10, JFK crisscrossed the state, shaking hands, kissing babies, and promising to get West Virginia moving again. He wooed New Deal Democrats by asking Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., to help with the campaign. One West Virginia reporter noted that Roosevelt’s visit to West Virginia was like “God’s son coming down and saying it was all right to vote for this Catholic, it was permissible, it wasn’t something terrible to do.”
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“Dear fellow Democrat,” began one letter from Roosevelt. “The people of West Virginia once again need the kind of understanding in Washington they had during the New Deal. There are many parallels.” FDR Jr. went on to blame the Republicans for West Virginia’s economic decline and drew comparisons between his father and JFK. “As in 1932, the people of West Virginia need strong, dynamic leadership in the White House. My father knew that all you want is a fair break and a decent chance to help yourselves; and you have justified his faith with miracles of labor and production. I believe that John F.
Kennedy is the only candidate for President who can furnish the needed leadership and understanding.” Roosevelt showed a darker side when he falsely accused Humphrey of avoiding the draft during World War II. In reality, the Minnesota senator had been rejected by the military due to a disability. JFK and Bobby knew as much, but never made Roosevelt repudiate the charge. The spurious accusation embittered Humphrey, who gradually realized that he was fighting a hopeless battle against a well-oiled, richly financed machine.

Roosevelt told other whoppers as well. When introducing JFK to a crowd in Bluefield, the former car salesman mashed his fingers together and said, “My daddy and Jack Kennedy’s daddy were just like that!” The senator was astonished by the audacity of FDR Jr.’s statement. In reality, President Roosevelt disliked JFK’s father, once referring to him as “a temperamental Irish boy” who was “thoroughly selfish and thoroughly obsessed with the idea that he must leave each of his nine children with a million dollars apiece when he dies.” However, throughout their careers, the Kennedys were never above using dirty tricks and delivering low blows if circumstances required. That is precisely what prompted them to flood West Virginia’s impoverished counties with cold cash. An old political tradition in the state held that county bosses (usually sheriffs) were responsible for picking “slates” in order to simplify the voting process for their constituents. Any candidate who wanted his name on the approved slate had to grease the palm of the local boss. The Kennedys, accustomed to such shenanigans in Boston’s boroughs, paid out thousands of dollars in “contributions” to Mountaineer kleptocrats.
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On May 10, West Virginians delivered JFK a 61 to 39 percent triumph over Hubert Humphrey, a margin so large that Kennedy won 48 of 55 counties. It was the campaign’s turning point, the moment the Kennedys had been planning and hoping for since January. A despondent Humphrey withdrew from the race, and a confident Kennedy predicted that he would win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Moreover, Kennedy claimed, the West Virginia vote had proven that the religious issue would not be a major factor in the upcoming presidential contest.
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