Remembering the Presidential Campaign of 1960
Written by Justin D. Lamb
Candidate John F. Kennedy during his October campaign stops in key states including Kentucky.
(Public domain)
The 1960 presidential election was one of the most heated and closest elections in American history. It featured Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republican Vice President Richard M. Nixon of California. The race created enthusiasm and energy on both sides as voters felt a sense of change in the air. Both candidates were relatively young, Kennedy only 43 years old and Nixon 47, and regardless of who was elected, the United States would for the first time have a Commander-in-Chief who was born in the 20th Century.
The age factor played a small negative part with the Kennedy camp as they worked to ward off perceptions of the young senator being “too inexperienced to lead the nation into the 1960s.” Age wasn’t the only factor dogging the Kennedy campaign as Kennedy’s Catholic faith became an issue with anti-Catholic prejudice still very much a factor in American life at the beginning of the 1960s. Many rural-Protestant Democrats were leery of Kennedy because of his Catholic beliefs. (The only other Catholic to run for President was Democratic Governor Al Smith of New York who lost overwhelming to Republican Herbert Hoover in 1928. Smith was abandoned by the Solid Democratic South mostly due to his Catholicism.) Many voters believed if elected, Kennedy would take orders from the Catholic Pope in Rome and the Vatican would control American policy.
Early in the campaign, Kennedy formed an informal group of advisors and speechwriters to deal with the religion issue. In September 1960, Kennedy was invited to speak at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association at the Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas. His invitation came merely days after 150 Protestant ministers met in Washington and publicly declared that “Kennedy cannot remain independent of the Catholic Church control unless he specifically repudiated its teachings.”
All eyes were on Kennedy as to how he would address the body of Protestant ministers. In his speech, which is now widely regarded as one his most eloquent, Kennedy told the crowd, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him. I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
Though the speech was widely praised, the Kennedy campaign still had work to convince Protestant voters. Kennedy began a tour of several key states including Kentucky. On October 5, Kennedy stopped in Louisville where he spoke at Jefferson Square followed by a second speech at the Louisville fairgrounds. He then departed for Washington to prepare for the second television debate with Nixon.
A few days later, Kennedy returned to Kentucky where he spoke at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and then attended a rally at the courthouse in Bowling Green. His final stop in Kentucky came on October 8 when he spoke at the Barkley Regional Airport in Paducah. Just a few days prior, the Benton Rotary Club held a poll between its members asking the question of who they would vote for on Election Day. In a surprise result, Nixon won the poll by a five vote margin over Kennedy. Local Democratic leaders were concerned that if Kennedy could not carry the strongly Democratic Marshall County along with other Democratic counties in western Kentucky that he could very well lose the entire state of Kentucky’s electoral votes in the November election. In some cases, ministers in the county were preaching from the pulpit trying to influence their parishioners not to vote for Kennedy. In one incident at the Benton Methodist Church, the minister preached a sermon trying to sway the parishioners to vote for Nixon because of Kennedy’s Catholic religion. This led local attorney and prominent Democrat John Clay Lovett to walkout in the middle of the sermon. More members of the church followed behind him.
When Kennedy arrived in Paducah, thousands of people from all across the Jackson Purchase area traveled to listen to what he had to say. “It is an honor to come to Paducah and it is an honor to come to the land of Alben Barkley,” Kennedy said in his opening comments.
Religion was never mentioned in his speech instead Kennedy went on to praise the Democratic administrations of the past hoping to capitalize on the region’s strong allegiance to the Democratic Party. “We stand where our other great leaders of the Democratic Party have stood in their day, looking forward. We do not expect that we can win this election by easy phrases, and by presenting vague national goals. I don’t run for the Presidency saying that if I am elected life will be easy. But I run for the office of the Presidency with the greatest faith in this country, with a realization, whether Mr. Nixon says so or not, whether our national leadership now recognizes it or not, that the United States is moving in the sixties through the most difficult and hazardous period of our country’s history, more hazardous, indeed, than any that the cause of freedom has ever faced.”
Kennedy concluded his speech, “I believe that you here in Kentucky, in the dark and bloody ground of history, you in Kentucky join me in looking forward out of this wellspring of American vitality and scenes of history, I believe that you say now in 1960 that it is time that the United States started moving again; it is time that we had in Washington once again an administration which will set before us the unfinished business, the agenda of our day, and which will start this country moving again.”
With officials predicting a large voter turnout in Marshall County, a Democratic motorcade tour was coordinated by Sheriff George Little to rally the Democratic troops in the Jackson Purchase region for a Kennedy victory. Marshall County Republican Party Chairman Lake Riley predicted a large turnout of Republican voters and was hopeful that Nixon would be the first Republican to carry the county since Abraham Lincoln carried it in 1864. (Note: Lincoln’s victory in Marshall County in 1864 was due to the barring of pro-Confederate Democrats ability to vote in the election).
On Election Day 1960, a record turnout was recorded in Marshall County and Kennedy narrowly carried the county by a mere 96 votes. “Political observers said Democrats of Marshall County voted heavily in favor of Richard Nixon the Republican candidate because of Kennedy’s membership in the Roman Catholic Church,” reported the Marshall Courier. Nixon carried 4 of the 14 precincts in Marshall County: Briensburg, Calvert City, West Benton, and Hardin as well as the absentee votes. Kennedy’s strongest victory in Marshall County was the North Benton precinct which he carried by 80 votes. His slimmest victory was the South Benton precinct which he won by only 4 votes. Kennedy was able to carry the other counties in the Jackson Purchase region, but lost the state’s electoral votes to Richard Nixon.
Kennedy went on to win the election nationwide by a margin of 118,000 votes out of 69 million in one of the narrowest victories in American history. According to the JFK Presidential Library, “there is solid evidence that religion helped Kennedy in several urban areas, but was also a significant factor in his loss of Kentucky, Ohio, Florida, and Tennessee.” After his election and due in part to his friendship and working relationship with Governor Ned Breathitt, Kennedy became a popular figure in Kentucky and was projected to carry the state in his re-election in 1964. Sadly, President Kennedy was struck down by an assassin’s bullet in November 1963 before he was able to officially begin his re-election bid.