David Von Pein: Thank You Mr. President 1983: A Look at President John F. Kennedy’s Press Conferences

Source: David Von Pein: Thank You Mr. President 1983: A Look at President John F. Kennedy’s Press Conferences

Watching President John F. Kennedy’s press conferences makes me want President Barack Obama to do more of them. Because they really do have a lot in common when it comes to intelligence, being off the cuff both in humor and how they talk and being able to give long intelligent answers to a whole host of questions off the cuff and being able to do it with humor. President Kennedy made press conferences fun for the reporters there because of his quick wit, but also because he gave them real information that they could work on a whole host of issues. From civil rights, to the economy, to foreign policy, the budget, the Cold War, nuclear power and everything else. Which gave Americans a great idea about how the President thought and what his administration was working on.

This was Jack Kennedy’s first press conference as President of the United States. Early 1961 with Democrats not just coming to power, but now they had all the power as a party. With the White House and both chambers of Congress with large majorities both in the House and Senate. A big part of that had to do with the Democratic Party having a right-wing Dixiecrat base in the South. Democrats who are and would be Republicans today. So the Republican Party was not just in the opposition in 1961, but were an opposition minority party that was reeling and not sure where they would go from there. I think President Kennedy was enjoying all of this and taking little jabs at the GOP with their current political status and that comes off in come of his answers.

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David Von Pein: The Life and Times of John F. Kennedy, 1964

Liberal Democrat

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

Another film about the life of John F. Kennedy our 35th President of the United States. This came out in 1964 less than a year after President Kennedy was assassinated. And he was already pretty popular as president in 1963 when he was killed and if anything he became more popular after he died. Perhaps because of all the questions rising about who killed him and did the assassin, or assassins have help is assassinating him in Dallas, Texas. I believe a lot of Jack Kennedy’s support comes from Hollywood. He was really our first hip president and had he been elected in the 1980s, or even in 1976, he would have been seen as a cool president. President Kennedy, did have same major accomplishments in his short time as president, but most of them had to do with foreign policy.

Jack Kennedy today I believe is both very popular personally, but his policies and politics and what he advocated are very popular in the country. He was a true Social Liberal who believed in both economic and personal freedom, as well as a safety net for people who truly need it. And because of this you even have Republicans who say they support Social Security and Medicare, as well as a public safety net for people who truly need it. JFK believed in a strong defense, but didn’t believe that America should, or could police the world by themselves. And again this is where Americans tend to be. We’re not dovish as a country, or neoconservative when it comes to foreign policy. We want to be able to defend ourselves and help people around the world, but not have to do everything ourselves.

So back in the early 1960s I believe a lot of the reasons for JFK’s popularity had to do with the fact that he was hip and cool. That Hollywood liked him and saw them as one of them, that he had friends in Hollywood. And that he was very different culturally from a lot of the president’s that had come before who were very traditional culturally. JFK also had a beautiful young hip wife in Jackie that the country including Hollywood loved and saw her as royalty. They were ahead of their time culturally in an era that was finally moving away from the 1940s and 1950s and into the 1960s which looked almost completely different as a decade as far as the role of women, how people lived and talked, the types of entertainment that was coming out. And these are I believe big reasons for the popularity of John Kennedy.

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