To paraphrase Harry Truman’s dictum that the only things we don’t yet know being the history we haven’t yet read, current headlines, in a comparative vein, are reminiscent of 1960.
Shortly before the beginning of the Democratic Convention of 1960 a group of prosperous looking Texans stood in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, the convention’s headquarters, and one said in a strong, determined accent with a notable Texas twang:
“That Kennedy is making me damned mad!”
The youthful Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and the politically experienced majority leader of that same body, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, had exchanged plenty of verbal blows as each sought to win the Democratic nomination and the opportunity to face Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the fall presidential campaign.
Despite animosity in both camps, when all was said and done a politically pragmatic result occurred as delivering the respective acceptance speeches before 50,000 in person viewers and millions more on national television were Senator Kennedy as presidential nominee and Majority Leader Johnson as his running mate.
Today on the “Cafferty File” CNN site the idea was discussed of a ticket comprised of senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for president and vice-president respectively.
Mentioned in this article for his current comments in this same direction was none other than former Bill Clinton aide and now ABC TV correspondent George Stephanopoulos, someone with extensive credentials among those in the New York senator’s camp.
In 1960 Kennedy sought to make history as America’s first Roman Catholic president. Forty-eight years later Barack Obama seeks to make history as the nation’s first African American chief executive.
Kennedy in 1960 needed electoral strengthening in the South, an area Johnson represented in Texas and knew exceptionally well nationally.
A current concern has been registered over Obama’s inability to register strongly with rural and white collar Americans, and among older citizens.
So which senator looms as a prospect to boost his prospects in the fall among those groups, and has been successfully courting them in the current campaign?
The answer is Hillary Clinton and there is more to be said in that vein. Columnist David Broder and others questioned Democratic strategy in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns for not using Bill Clinton more to “shore up the Democratic base.”
Could Bill Clinton be called upon to exercise heavy duty lifting in a campaign in which the vice-presidential candidate is someone who also has the last name of Clinton?
An interesting development from today is what Hillary Clinton said while campaigning in West Virginia. She noted the importance of winning that state, which contains high white rural and blue collar concentration, indicating concern over recent failures there in presidential elections.
The point the New York senator made involved both Clinton and Obama needing to make a good case in West Virginia to pull the state back into the Democratic column.
Could this statement in retrospect be seen as the first shot from the bow emanating from a Democratic pragmatic unity ticket? Could she right now be performing pre-November service for both candidates?
At this moment certain savvy Democratic Party professionals are pulling up as many numbers as possible to see the potential of Hillary Clinton along with husband Bill campaigning assiduously among groups where they are perceived as stronger and Obama weaker.
Obama has undeniably brought new faces into the 2008 political scene based on his message of hope and a fresh beginning, bringing in impressive numbers among young voters as well as independents and Republicans appalled by the neoconservative bent of that party.
Conversely the Clintons have drawn strong support from the old FDR-Truman-Kennedy base of white collar workers, union members, and grassroots rural voters.
If Obama and Clinton could metaphorically “hold serve,” meaning retain the support level of groups that voted for them in the primaries, then as a unified force the Democrats hold the potential for a smashing November triumph at the presidential and congressional levels.
This prospect is exemplified by the current level of polling revealing that some 70 percent of Americans disapprove of the Bush-Cheney administration’s record.
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Bill Hare
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