Fifty Years Ago Dems Were Different

Lately I've found myself wondering how my parents would vote today.  As a junior high school kid in 1960 I proudly sported a JFK sticker on my class notebook and thought that a guy who wore neither a fedora or "greasy kids' stuff" in his hair had to be the right guy to lead the country.  Nixon?!  Give me a break! 

 Though they guarded their political preferences like the crown jewels, when I reached adulthood my parents were pretty open about who they had voted for in the past.  In 1960 mom had cast her lot with Nixon because, though she was a Stevenson Democrat, she valued security and the safety of the familiar.  The Republicans truly were the Mommy Party of the day.  The party of Ike would keep us out of war and keep us prosperous.

Dad voted for Kennedy.  I think he identified with Kennedy's World War II Navy service in the South Pacific.  They were both about the same age and had been junior officers in that conflict with the Japanese.  It didn't hurt that JFK was a sports fan and a charmer.  No doubt the Marilyn Monroe rumors had dad among the middle-aged males eager to cast their ballots with good ol' Jack when 1964 rolled around.

This week, as if I needed another reminder of just how fast my hourglass is running  down, the news was loaded with feature stories about the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy's inauguration.  FIFTY YEARS??!!  Holy crap I'm old.

Naturally there has been much made of his terrific speech with its now famous "Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country."  That sentiment resonated with most Americans, especially we baby boomers.  The world was new and we lived in the greatest of all nations; it was time to do great things.

And then he was gone.

For boomers, and no doubt others, the assassination of John Kennedy was a watershed event in our lives. Overnight, just as surely as our favorite Top 40 radio stations went from playing Elvis and Jerry Lee to non-stop funeral music, we were no longer sure that the future held the promise of only good things.  Apparently the good guys didn't always win and tomorrow wasn't necessarily a better day.  We changed.  The country changed.

LBJ, our new president, had jug ears and spoke with a drawl.  He also hammered a philosophy of "entitlements"  owed to Americans just for hanging around.  I remember my dad laughing the first time he heard that one.  I did too.   Seemingly overnight we went from a country of people looking for ways to become even better to a populace looking for politicians to hand us things paid for with our own tax dollars.  No longer "hand outs" they were "entitlements".

Dad never voted for another democrat.  LBJ, so unpopular that he had to forgo a second term of his own, went on to the presidential obscurity he richly deserved.  And, were he alive today, Jack Kennedy would most likely stand by the essence of those words  of fifty years ago and remind us that our only entitlement is the right to strive to make the most of the gifts offered to us by what is still the greatest country in the world.  Then he would begin the nearly impossible task of finding someone for whom he could vote.