Part II: Early Political Career

2Part II: Early Political Career

2.1Campaign for Congress

An important element throughout Kennedy’s political career was his family’s wealth, influence and prestige, and his first campaign was not an exception. Barnes confirms, that “money was certainly indispensable to Kennedy’s success” (25). Joe Kennedy Sr. “handled all money matters” (Silvestri 18). He did not only provide money for administrative costs connected with campaigning but also for all sorts of advertising including billboards, direct mailing and radio advertising. “People saw Kennedy, heard Kennedy, ate Kennedy, drank Kennedy, slept Kennedy...” (Lasky 98).

Nine other candidates were running for the seat (O’Brien 194), however, young Kennedy was putting a lot of effort into his campaign. He started earlier than his opponents and it became a standard for his other campaigns as well, he was meeting a lot of people face to face, campaigning door-to-door, delivering a lot of speeches, and walking in neighborhoods, visiting different public places. Kennedy’s team organized numerous house parties and receptions, where his sisters⁸ and his mother, Rose Kennedy, often participated as well. His campaign was very well organized in terms of personnel. He had a lot of volunteers from lines of veterans and students working for him. JFK’s war record, which he stressed throughout his campaign, certainly increased his popularity with veterans. The main topics of Kennedy’s campaign were economical issues – higher minimum wage, better housing conditions which were especially important to working class people.

Many perceived Kennedy as “...millionaire’s son from Harvard trying to come into an area that is longshoremen, waitresses, truck drivers and so forth...” (Dallek, Unfinished Life 127). Some of his opponents called him a carpetbagger⁹ and although many of them liked to point out how young and inexperienced Kennedy was, he won the primary election on June 18, 1946. He earned forty percent of votes (Silvestri 24). On November 5, 1946, Jack won the election against his Republican opponent, Lester Brown (O’Brien 205).

Although Kennedy did not focus on the rights of black Americans during his campaign for Congress, he made his first public statement regarding racial injustice at that time. He complimented on the heroism of African Americans during the Second World War, and apart from that he called for the abolition poll tax¹⁰ and “new fair employment laws aimed at eliminating workplace discrimination” (Bryant 15). Even though he stressed the war records of blacks and he emphasized the need to abolish poll tax, he did not criticize the situation in the South in connection with racial issues explicitly. It is quite certain that he was just trying to appeal to black minority as he also tried to other minorities because they constituted a high percentage of his voters. To attract the interest of Italians, Kennedy liked to point out that his grandfather Honey Fitz, who had been Boston Mayor, “had appointed the first Italians to city office” (Barnes 65).

2.2Years in Congress

Congressman Kennedy often voted in favor of the underprivileged. Despite his privileged childhood, Kennedy was always a supporter of “equal opportunity and fairness for all Americans, and his congressional votes favored civil liberties” (Silvestri 242). He supported issues such as health care, subsidized housing, rent control, school lunch program, which were crucial for the voters in his district, as most of them belonged to a low income social class. However, Kennedy certainly did not have a reputation of a civil rights advocate during his years in Congress. Most sources suggest that he did not pay much attention to the civil rights and race related issues early in his career. The reason may have been the fact that he had little experience with African Americans and he was hardly aware of the reality they had to face, particularly in the states of the Deep South. He grew up in a wealthy Irish-Catholic family in Boston. Bryant suggests that Kennedy “would link the fight for equality to the struggle against communism” (31). Depending on the issue, Kennedy was sometimes conservative, sometimes liberal, however, when voting on important issues, he was in mostly agreement with liberal Democrats from the North.

2.3Campaign for Senate

John Kennedy decided to candidate for the office of United States Senator in 1951. His rival candidate in this election was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.¹³ Kennedy’s senatorial campaign was very innovative and very well organized. His family “played a critical role, not only in terms of financial support but also with Robert Kennedy as campaign manager and the Kennedy sisters along with Rose Kennedy hosting a series of tea parties throughout the state...” (Kenney 28). Kennedy again, as in the previous campaign, stressed his heroism during the Second World War. The main campaign topics were anticommunism, Massachusetts economy, government spending, and Kennedy started to deal with the civil rights issues. The reason might have resulted from the growing struggle of civil rights advocates for the equality of African Americans in all spheres of life, but also the fact that wanted to beat Senator Lodge and therefore he certainly needed the support of black voters.

The crucial members of Kennedy’s team were: Joshua Guberman, a lawyer with close ties to Boston black community; Harold Vaughan, assistant to Boston Mayor who had excellent organizational skills and valuable contacts in the city of Boston (O’Brien 242); and Herbert Tucker, NAACP activist, whose main task was to secure black votes (Bryant 38). Kennedy’s slogans were directly appealing to black voters. Advertisements with the slogan: “Kennedy has done and will do more for more of us” were targeting directly black voters in Boston Chronicle¹⁴ (Bryant 38). They used mail-shots, voter registration drives and also the word of mouth in black communities. Kennedy was addressing business people from black neighborhoods – he had a speech at the Professional and Businessmen’s club, where he “addressed over a hundred black businessmen” (ibid.). In addition, Kennedy’s campaign team decided to organize one of Kennedy teas in Roxbury (a black neighborhood in Boston), which proved to be a great success followed soon by other tea parties in African American neighborhoods (Bryant 40).

Kennedy’s campaign team did not target only ethnic voters¹⁵ but also women – tea parties and receptions were targeted on women mostly. As O’Brien explains: “They were often staged at an elegant local hotel; women guest got new hairdos, dressed themselves...” (249). Kennedy needed to secure votes from the all segments of the society, therefore the tea parties in black neighborhoods and speeches at African American business clubs can be seen as mere political acts motivated by his ambition. I would not link these efforts to fight for civil rights of black Americans, but rather to the political strategy which Kennedy followed.

An important element in Kennedy’s program was the proposal to amend the Rule XXII, the so called Cloture Rule.¹⁶ In one of his first speeches concerning civil rights issues, Kennedy claimed: “I want to go to the Senate to join those who are really fighting for a change in the present Senate rules – which permit empty words to kill all attempts to protect the constitutional rights of minority groups of Americans. I want to go to the Senate to continue my fight for Civil Rights legislation” (Bryant 36). His tactic to focus on the civil rights issues and the idea of paying special attention to black voters proved to be successful because Kennedy defeated Lodge by victory of 70,000 votes (Kenney 30). As Bryant confirms, “never before had a senatorial candidate pursued black voters so aggressively nor drawn together such an accomplished campaign team to help” (42). In 1952, ninety-one percent of Massachusetts voters went to the polls, “an increase of more than seventeen percent from the Senate contest in 1946, with most of the greater voting occurring in ethnic districts” (Dallek, Unfinished Life 175). Even though, Kennedy expressed a certain interest in the civil rights act and he emphasized the need for legislative changes, he did not propose any particular amendment or measure to be taken in order to improve the situation of African Americans. He did not mention any particular problems related to the injustice the African Americans were still experiencing. He was rather concerned with his opponent’s civil rights record and the emphasis on civil rights issues could have been the tactics how to obtain more votes.

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