The Presidential Election of 1960 Essay

In order to compare these two influential elections, one must first have a firm grasp of the historiography of both elections. The 1964 election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It had a lot of controversy around it due to the Republican nomination of politician and businessman Barry M. Goldwater for the president run. He outweighed prominent Republican candidates, for instance, Nelson A. Rockefeller. Goldwater did not have the support of his own party to run the election and underwent heavy criticism due to his unpopular conservative political position. He faced the Democrat

One of the nation’s youngest presidents to be inaugurated, John F Kennedy was born on May 29th, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the second son of nine children to Irish Catholic immigrants, Joseph and Rose Kennedy. His father Joseph was an ambitious millionaire who served under Roosevelt as Director of Security and Exchange and U.S ambassador in Britain, which helped fortify the Kennedys influence in politics. Growing up, John F. Kennedy’s poor health never prevented him from exceling in academics. He went to Chaote for high school and then attended Princeton University before he fell ill and then transferred to Harvard. He would graduate with a degree in International Affairs. His senior thesis inspired his novel, Why London Slept and continued writing other books like Profiles of Courage and a Nation of Immigrants. Despite his heath conditions, he joined the Navy in WWII as a PT boat commander and received many awards for his service and bravery (Deahl).

Kennedy was elected as President of the United States of America. Kennedy became the youngest and first Catholic to ever hold office for presidency. The controversy of this election was about appearances and who had the most experience and lastly the best candidate for the well-being of the United States. Appearances took on added significance because the election focused on the candidates, and not issues. Kennedy only won because he was vibrant and had the American dream as his goal. The election of 1960 was closest in history because of the 49.7% popular vote to Nixon’s 49.5% vote. Nixon actually won the most states in votes but Kennedy won the Electoral

C. Support for #2: The Democratic convention nominated JFK as its candidate for President on July 13, 1960 and he turned to Johnson to be his Vice Presidential candidate. Despite the controversy of his Catholic faith Kennedy defeated his Republican opponent Richard Nixon on November 8, 1960 (Dallek).

Election of 1968, It was 1968 and LBJ just announced that he would no longer run for President. Suddenly the Democratic party had to move things around and come up with a new representative for them. They found Robert Kennedy, he was loved by everyone and became the frontrunner of

On January 20, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy became the youngest man to possess presidency in the United States of America. As a young, wealthy man Kennedy rapidly climbed the political ladder by initially representing a working class Boston district in the United States Congress, then continuing on to the House of Representatives, followed by the United States Senate, and ending with the victorious defeat of his presidential opponent, to become the 35th president of the United States. According to theatlantic.com, Kennedy was so admired by the public, that “in the eyes of the world, this reticent man became a charismatic leader who, in his life and in his death, served as a symbol of purpose and hope.” As a result of John F. Kennedy’s

America has always been a proud nation full of nationalism as well. The people, looked up to their government and their presidents for what to do during the dark days of depression, war, economic shutdown, and communism. The people knew who their enemies were or at least had a description. America never truly had a reason to doubt their leaders, those were the people who lead the nation to victory. Then there was a blow, a crisis that flipped everyone’s views and values upside down. There was an enemy that needed to be defeated, needed to , for this moment was that the so called enemy was the president himself, Richard Nixon.

The United States presidential election in 1960 marked the end of the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower who spent two terms in office. His vice president, Richard Nixon was the Republican candidate, while Democrats nominated Senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. It should be noted that, this election was the closest vote in a presidential election since 1916 . In the popular vote, the margin of victory of Kennedy, was one of the closest in American history.

Muskie also had some strong opponents for the democratic nomination for president. Hubert Humphrey who lost to Nixon in 1968 was seen as a possible contender, along with Alabama Governor George Wallace, and Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. Muskie’s campaign was crippled when he only won the New Hampshire primary with 47 percent of the vote compared to the 65 percent he was predicted to receive. Followed by bad publicity and his fourth place finish in Florida Muskie began to finish poorly in the remaining primaries. When McGovern won Massachusetts Muskie halted his campaign. Wallace was still considered a possible contender until an attempt to assassinate him left Wallace paralyzed and he thus withdrew from the campaign. Humphrey and McGovern were the remaining contenders. The California primary was one that left the Democratic Party divided. In debates between Humphrey and McGovern, Humphrey accused McGovern of being too liberal. Although McGovern won California, he won by a narrower margin than expected, which seemed to show that Humphrey’s attacks had taken their toll. McGovern won most of the remaining primaries and received the democratic nomination for president. Although McGovern received the nomination, a divided Democratic Party may have hurt his campaign early on.

The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 was written by Gary A. Donaldson. It was published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers in the United States in 2007 and it is 199 pages long. The central thesis of the book is that the 1960 presidential election marked a turning point in how presidential candidates convinced people to vote for them. Donaldson places a major emphasis on the role that image played in this election. John F. Kennedy had a fantastic image, which was manufactured by public relations people and broadcasted to the nation by television, and it certainly was a factor in his victory. Donaldson clearly shows that this election was unlike any other before it in history. He used over 100 sources from archival collections, interviews, books, articles, and government documents to make this argument on both Kennedy’s and Nixon’s campaign, as well as Johnson’s campaign.

Election – the election year of 1968 was one of the more tumultuous, with . The election featured prominent political figures, of which included

What respectable person would think of the best choice for president? There are plenty of classical case of presidential campaigns in past years. In 1960, the Soviet Union and the United States were in the Cold War. Nevertheless, civil rights and the fight against apartheid and other issues cause a lot of trouble. According to these historical background, there are two politicos began to compete for president: John F. Kennedy, a young and dynamic Massachusetts senator; Nixon, an experienced members of congress. Compared with Kennedy and Nixon before the presidential campaign, Kennedy not only the lack of rich diplomatic experience, but also in a disadvantaged situation of his identity of Catholics. However, Kennedy won the presidential campaign by his unique advantage. There are several differences and similarities between Kennedy and Nixon that cause the final result of the presidential campaign.

The people received what they wished for in two young Presidential Nominees. For the Republicans it was Richard Nixon (1913-94) who was forty-seven at the time. He was very experienced for his age. He served as Eisenhower’s Vice-president, was a very decorated navy veteran and had even survived an assassination attempt. He was also very popular within the Senate and one of Eisenhower’s most often consulted colleagues.

The thirty-fifth U.S. president, who set out to expand social welfare spending with his New Frontier program. Kennedy was elected in 1960, defeating Republican Richard M. Nixon.Kennedy and members of his foreign policy staff devised the tactic to contain Communism. Kennedy sent military advisors to support Ngo Dinh Diem’s corrupt regime in South Vietnam and formed the

A Presidential campaign or election can be filled with many rumors, articles, questions, conferences and many other direct and indirect contact between the president and the people. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected the 35th president of the USA. He was elected in hope of change as he established the Peace Corps, set national goals of landing on the moon and introduced the first civil rights bill in the congress after 2 years of election. However, these accomplishments were falsified and discredited by accusations toward him that many thought might have led to his assassination.