What was critical to kennedys victory in the election of 1960

Kennedy was the first and to date the only Catholic President. He was from the liberal north-east, Irish American and fighting a very tight race against Richard Nixon. Johnson's support was vital in securing enough of the South, which was necessary for Kennedy to get into the White House by a very slim margin. Kennedy's victory however was probably more the result of Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago mafia, fixing the vote in Illinois.

Why was Lyndon Johnson important to John F. Kennedy's victory in ? David P. Many Americans were willing to believe in a man who could get the country moving again and confront the changing world, and on a number of fronts Kennedy resonated with this will. His youth — he was the first president born in the 20 th century, and the youngest up to that point.

Together with his glamour and style, he created an irresistible allure that supplemented his significant political skill and resources. His election victory ushered in a new breed of politics focused around image and presentation. TV A new online only channel for history lovers. Sign Me Up. Getting to the moon was no easy feat, no matter how confident Kennedy may have sounded in his famous speech.

Fong tells stories of just how close they came to failure, and how risky it was. Dan Snow meets Calder Walton for a martini and an overview of Russia's history of interference in foreign elections. Al Worden is an American astronaut and engineer who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.

Philadelphia suburbanites voted one way, Chicago suburbanites the other. Not much sense can be made of these variations at the moment, and perhaps not much sense will ever be made of them. All that is currently known is that the variations were numerous and wild. And the variations were not merely regional. The individual voter seemed as torn as the country itself. Voting a split ticket seems to have become a proof of civic virtue.

Kentucky endorsed Mr. Not since Herbert Hoover has there been a President whose entire political career was spent in Washington, and there has probably never been in the White House a man as intimately known to residents of this community as Senator Kennedy. He has been an interesting and striking figure here since his election to the Eightieth Congress in Early in his career, particularly in the period following his election to the Senate in , the number of his detractors probably equalled—and perhaps even surpassed—that of his admirers.

His ambition was thought to be untempered by humor or charity, and a good many people considered his lack of political valor to be as conspicuous as the military valor he had shown during the war.

It would be an exaggeration to maintain that he no longer has detractors here or that one no longer hears any of the old misgivings expressed. But well before his nomination his admirers became a clear majority, and the majority kept growing as the campaign went on.

Some of the most severe and dispassionate judges of political morality here felt that his campaign this year was an uncommonly dignified and responsible one. It is believed that he will begin his term with few assets greater than the respect he has won from people here who are customarily cautious and grudging in the respect they show politicians. In character and in political style, there are many things about Senator Kennedy that are reminiscent of the late Senator Robert A.

His language seemed to lack grace, rhythm, and feeling. It was difficult for those who knew him well to convince those who did not that he was a very different man away from the crowds and the battlegrounds—relaxed, amusing, amused, sometimes witty, and far from doctrinaire. He enjoyed hearing his own views criticized unsparingly, and he enjoyed defending them.

He had more intellectual curiosity and more intellectual passion than any other leading politician of his time. Senator Kennedy produces infinitely more warmth in crowds than Senator Taft ever did, but their response appears to be stimulated by his buoyancy and bearing and good looks, rather than by what he says, or even how he says it. He gives the impression of being a man who, while speaking lines he has committed to memory and making gestures that are nothing more than reflexes he has painfully conditioned himself to, is privately absorbed in wonder at why he is doing what he is doing and why so many people are watching him do it.

At one point during an evening motorcade trip late in the campaign, he expressed exactly this wonder to a travelling companion, saying that he would never understand why adult citizens would abandon the pleasures of the fireside to get a fleeting look at a politician.

And, like Senator Taft, Senator Kennedy, once out of the public eye, loses all the awkwardness and all the harshness of manner that seem to characterize him when he is doing business with the people. His speech immediately becomes colloquial, and ready for a genuine and easygoing exchange of ideas, wisecracks, and private reactions. It is recognized on every hand here that the President-elect can be a very hard man as well as a most agreeable one. There is a story about his arrangements with Lyndon Johnson at the Los Angeles convention that is pretty much in character even if—as may well be the case—it is apocryphal.

Politicians who profess to know the truth say that when Senator Kennedy made up his mind about the Vice-Presidency and announced his decision to Senator Johnson, the Majority Leader replied that while he was honored by the proposal, he was convinced that he could be a greater force for good in the office he then held.

Still, no one supposes that Senator Kennedy is above arm-twisting of this sort, and no one supposes that he reached his present eminence without indulging in a good bit of it. The fact that politics is never anything but a rough game may provide a better argument for condemning politics than for condoning roughness, but the common belief here is that the cement of a society such as ours requires some distasteful ingredients, and that roughness is to be condemned only when it becomes brutal and sadistic, or when it is practiced by men who consider themselves Messiahs.

There is not the slightest trace of the Messiah complex in the President-elect. Before Election Day, it was generally assumed that if the Vice-President met with defeat, the Republican Party would be a very sick organization and Mr.