1960: Who Would You Have Supported

[KharmaTrain]

With a tight primary race shaping up in Iowa, I was looking back on another hard fought primary...1960. Suppose we could transport back to that time...I'd be curious who DU'ers would have supported.

The major candidates:

J F Kennedy - The "young upstart"...wealth, name, good looks but served less than a term in the Senate...considered by many to be too conservative on most social issues, a war hawk and his religion was considered an issue.

Lyndon Johnson - not quite the LBJ we saw later...he was still a supporter of the Dixiecrat "Southern and States rights" wing of the party. No, not racist, but at that point he was in the "don't ask, don't tell" with others who would soon leave the Democratic party for Nixon's "Southern Strategy". He was the Senate majority leader, lots of experience, a real power broker, non-nonsense on defense and a moderate on many social issues.

Hubert Humphrey - The Happy Warrior...representative of the labor and "liberal" wing of the party. Hubert personified the New Deal spirit of the post war years and was an early supporter of the civil rights struggle and other issues that many current Progressives and Liberals can relate to. His problem was he was considered weak on defense and this was right in the midst of the hot era of the Cold War.

There were other candidates as well, but those were the top three. This primary was just a little before my time...I barely recall seeing JFK's inauguration right before my 5th birthday (and yes, I vividly recall 11/22/63). I'm sure there are other DU'ers who have better recollections that could share them...and to see how today's Democrats would line up if faced with these choices.

Discuss...

[dsc]

1. I was born in 1967 so no first hand knowledge here

but I think I would have been a Humphrey man if I had been around then.

[emmadoggy]

5. Me too - on both counts.

:-)

[TahitiNut]

2. The Democrats in my family supported Humphrey. I liked Kennedy.

I was in high school. :shrug:

[KharmaTrain]

18. Were You From A Labor Family?

My parents started as strong Humphrey supporters...they were very pro-union and he was their man. Kennedy was very much like Obama...inexperienced and young...(even though JFK was a year older than my father). They saw Humphrey as part of the FDR legacy...moreso than Stevenson or anyone else. But they became strong Kennedy supporters later on.

I see an interesting parallel between JFK and Obama in that both were knocked for their inexperience (Kennedy made his name as the rising star in the '56 convention like Obama did at the '04 one) and that both had to overcome a hurdle...Kennedy's Catholocism and Obama's race...where others had failed, they stood the best and most credible opportunity to shatter those barriers.

Just observations to waste away a Saturday afternoon.

Cheers...

[TahitiNut]

25. You got it. Pro-union, protestant, blue-collar, New Deal Democrats.

... at least that's what the "political" part of my family was. Then there've been a scattering of Republicans, Perotistas, and Dixiecrats. (My father was a Wallace Dixiecrat.)

I come by my staunch (anti-partisan) independent LIBERAL stances the old-fashioned way: I EARNED them.

[taterguy]

3. Hubert Humphrey because he's named after the place where the Twins play

[SheilaT]

4. I was 11 years old when

that primary took place. Since I lived in another part of the country at the time, i was quite unaware of the primary.

We were Roman Catholics ourselves, all four of my grandparents came from Ireland, and needless to say my parents became enthusiastic supporters of John Kennedy.

As an adult, I am not religious, do not belong to a church or any organized religion. I suspect, that were the person I am now an adult in 1960, I'd have been a Humphrey supporter.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. My heart was with JFK

even though my mother was, at the time, a staunch Republican. She was for Margaret Chase Smith. Back then, there were critters called "liberal Republicans" who believed in a liberal social agenda and a conservative fiscal policy.

[madrchsod]

7. kennedy

my sister was a huge kennedy fan. he was her generation as bobby was mine. the world would be far different if these to men were not murdered

[LeftishBrit]

8. Before my time; and obviously I wouldn't have been voting anyway

but I think I would have preferred Humphrey, then Kennedy, then Johnson.

Over here, I suppose I'd have been voting for Labourite Gaitskell against Tory Macmillan, not dreaming that one day our Labour leaders would be well to the right of Macmillan, let alone Gaitskell (who was considered on the right of his party at that time).

[tsuki]

9. Humphrey was my choice. nt

[terrya]

10. I would have been for Humphrey

He had a superb record on civil rights. He was closest to me ideologically.

[0007]

11. I voted for JFK in 1960

[JustAnotherGen]

12. Humphrey

Hands down, Humphrey.

[spanone]

13. i was a kid but my parents voted for Kennedy....probably would have to

[jlake]

14. Definitely Humphrey

I am was not around back then, but I have never understood the huge appeal of JFK.

[David Zephyr]

15. I was eight years old and had a poster of JFK above my bed in Texas.

John Kennedy was just electric back then. We were robbed.

[brazos121200]

16. I was 15 when the 1960 primariy season took place.

Adlai Stevenson who had already lost twice to Dwight Eisenhower was also a candidate that year as wa sSen Stuart Syminton of Missouri. I was too young to really care about politics then but I remember JFK's great stage presence and charisma, although I didn't know what it was called then. Stevenson was a terrible campaigner and would probably have lost again if he had ran. Johnson was pretty much a southern gentleman Democrat although he had some liberal tendencies. Humphrey seemed boring to me and thought he looked more like a republican than a democrat. I probably would have supported Kennedy if I had been able to vote. I'm glad I wouldn't have supported Humphrey since he was such a yes man for Johnson during the Vietnam war until nearly the very end of the 1968 campaign when he saw he would lose unless he quit supporting the war. They were all flawed candidtates in one way or another.

[UTUSN]

17. Not only who *would* I have, but who I *did* support: LBJ

I wasn't of voting age. My older sister came home from college on holidays with a total schoolgirl crush on JFK. She was known as the not-smart-one of us three kids.

I, who had read a 7 volume biography of Woodrow WILSON, considered her choice frivolous and insubstantial.

After JFK won the election, he won me over with the lofty rhetoric and the supposedly classy patina.

Now in the sourness of age, what sticks out more than anything for me is the TRIVIALITY of how our political system works and how by-a-hairsbreath we have survived more times than I care to know about, given the WHIMS of people in power. And about the supremacy of petty personality conflicts at our highest levels that push us this way or that. Whims.

Of the three KENNEDYs, I think that Ted will end up with the most substantial accomplishments.


It sickens me that today's Tweety and RUSSERT pretend to be JFK-ites, which amounts to Catholic school nostalgia, while they daily bash true Dem ideas. Yeah, today RUSSERT did a full lap dance with Caroline KENNEDY about another one of her books of candied nostalgia. This gives him credentials as a Lib spokesman, which he uses the rest of the year to slaughter working stiff Dems.

[KharmaTrain]

20. Perspective Gets Lost

A reason I brought up this race is the perceptions of history vs. the realities of the time. These three men were complex people who, as I'm seeing, evoked both positive and negative reactions. A lot, IMHO, is the filter of time and
"legacy". Some here are sure to read what you've posted and not relate...and symbolizes similiar divisions we're seeing today.

[UTUSN]

22. HaHAH!1 "Some here ...not relate" to my post!1 Welcome to my DU life!1 n/t

[Progress And Change]

19. Humphrey

[tech3149]

21. I was only a kid then, but Kennedy was inspirational

I grew up learning about the great things FDR did to save the country and the neighboring town was named after his wife. I saw Jack Kennedy as being the FDR of our time. Like FDR, he wasn't perfect, but he did more good than harm.

[Rowdyboy]

23. If I'd been old enough, either Stuart Symington or Hubert Humphrey...two genuine giants...

[postulater]

24. I got Humphrey's autograph

when he stopped at our town square during the primaries.

And JFK slept at my uncle's house. My uncle was local democratic connection and was from Boston so they had a lot to talk about.

But I was only nine.