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John F. Kennedy's Political Career

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John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Both the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys were wealthy and well-known Irish Catholic Boston families. Kennedy's grandfather, P.J. Kennedy, was a wealthy banker and liquor trader, and his other grandfather, John E. Fitzgerald, was a skilled politician who served as a congressman and as the mayor of Boston. Kennedy's mother, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was a Boston debutante, and his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., was a successful banker who made a fortune on the stock market after World War I. Joe Kennedy Sr. went on to a government career as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and as an ambassador to Great Britain. John F. Kennedy was the second oldest of …show more content…

For a time, for a while, people thought JFK was running for lieutenant-governor, but in the end, he settled on running for the House's Eleventh District, a spread area that included much of East Boston and Cambridge. It was a heavily Democratic district, so the key to winning the election lay in winning the Democratic primary. To that end, Joseph Kennedy, Sr. pulled out all the stops. Using his connections in the Boston newspapers, he talked up his family's charitable work, their faithful Catholicism, and JFK's status as a war hero. Much money was spent on streetcar advertising for him, and local politicians were prepared to lend their support. JFK got into politics because his grandfather was mayor of Boston and his father was very active in political activities. He wanted his oldest son to have a political career but when he was killed in the war, it fell upon John to satisfy his father’s ambitions. John started by running for …show more content…

Senate because it was necessary for him too. John was again backed by his father's huge financial resources, Kennedy hired his younger brother Robert as his campaign manager. Robert Kennedy put together what one journalist called "the most methodical, the most scientific, the most thoroughly detailed, the most intricate, the most disciplined and smoothly working state-wide campaign in Massachusetts history – and possibly anywhere else." In an election year in which Republicans gained control of both Houses of Congress, Kennedy nevertheless won a narrow victory, giving him considerable influence within the Democratic Party. According to one of his assistants, the key factor in Kennedy's victory was his personality: "He was the new kind of political figure that people were looking for that year, dignified and gentlemanly and well-educated and intelligent, without the air of superior condescension.” Shortly after his election, Kennedy met a beautiful young woman named Jacqueline Bouvier at a dinner party. They were later married on September 12, 1953. Jack and Jackie Kennedy had three children: Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., and Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy continued to suffer frequent illnesses during his career in the

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