The Kennedy Primary?
1 votes
Hillary on Kennedy in Nashua, NH
Length: 1 min 39 sec
Instead, Clinton made a rhetorical point in her Saturday night speech to over 1,000 Democratic activists that those who discount the idea that America is ready to elect a woman as president should consider what past naysayers said about Kennedy during the 1960 presidential election.
"Now there are some who say America is not ready for a woman to be elected president," Clinton stated. "It's a lot [like] what people were saying back in 1959. People from New Hampshire came together to offer their support for a presidential candidate from just south of here. He was smart, he was dynamic, he was inspiring. And he was Catholic." (Please see attached video for Clinton's full remarks).
Criticisms of Clinton's remarks lack the historical context that Kennedy was the first ever speaker at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's "100 Club" dinner in 1959, the same event at which Clinton was speaking.
But by mentioning JFK in her speech, Clinton becomes the third presidential candidate to invoke the mythical-to-some Democratic president.
When asked which Democratic presidential candidate had captured the hearts of the college-age generation, a "100 Club" attendee who drove all the way from Ithaca College in New York told The Daily Acts, "Obama. He's the new JFK." The student's remarks came before Clinton's speech.
Late last week Obama touted the endorsement of Ted Sorenson, a former JKF speech writer.
For his part, Sorenson compared Obama's campaign to Kennedy's.
"The campaigns are comparable," told Ben Smith of the Politico. "They say he's too young, he's too inexperienced, his demographic is wrong to get elected. They've decided in Washington that he doesn't have a chance. But the campaign isn't going on in Washington. The campaign is going on in the grassroots."
Perhaps the most apt comparison comes from the other side of the partisan aisle.
Republican Mitt Romney wants to break the religion barrier, too. Should he be elected, Romney would be the nation's first Mormon president, just as Kennedy was the nation's first Catholic president.
According to internal Romney campaign documents obtained by the Boston Globe, the comparison is not lost on Romney's image makers. Recognizing that many Republican voters are unfamiliar with, and thus potentially nervous about, Mormonism, Romney adman Alex Castellanos recommends in the document that Romney address his faith head on in a speech similar to Kennedy's now-famous speech about his faith in 1960.
The rush of presidential aspirants invoking Kennedy follows a recent spate of similar appeals by Republican candidates who claim to represent the ideals of former President Ronald Reagan.
America is ready for a "qualified" "woman" President. Too bad Hillary isn't "qualified".