Alex Spillius: Barack Obama should be wary of donning John F Kennedy's mantle
[Alex Spillius has written articles published in The Daily Telegraph (Washington Correspondent) and The Sunday Telegraph.]
When John F Kennedy chose to accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1960 before a crowd of 50,000 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, his brother Robert worried - needlessly, as it turned out - that he would not fill the seats.
No such concerns exist for Barack Obama, who has announced he will be the first nominee since JFK, the icon he hopes to succeed, to make his acceptance speech in a football stadium. After regularly attracting huge crowds in campaign backwaters during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton, he could probably fill the 76,000 seats at the Denver Broncos stadium on August 28 and then some.
Some argue that drawing such a blatant parallel with one of America's most revered presidents, immortalised by his assassination in 1963, invites trouble.
But much of the success of politicians such as Obama and Kennedy (and Ronald Reagan for that matter) is due to the fact that Americans are idealists. They almost crave politicians with grand visions capable of redefining a nation that is a juvenile, robust and shifting collection of peoples.
"American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions," said Robert Dallek, the historian and biographer of Kennedy and other presidents. "We have a great yearning for inspiring leadership."
The Democratic Party's 2008 nominee has often been compared to JFK. Like Kennedy, Obama is youngish, fresh-faced, eloquent and offers to take the country in a new direction. The ever-artful Obama has been careful to avoid making direct comparisons himself.
Rather, in his speeches, he compares the America of 1960 to the America of 2008, and the critical junctures faced: then, civil rights and outer space; now, healing a nation wounded by overseas conflicts and cultural wars at home.
He has left direct comparisons to the media and to the Kennedy family. He has received a thumping endorsement from JFK's youngest brother Ted Kennedy, while the assassinated president's daughter Caroline is working for the Obama campaign...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
When John F Kennedy chose to accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1960 before a crowd of 50,000 at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, his brother Robert worried - needlessly, as it turned out - that he would not fill the seats.
No such concerns exist for Barack Obama, who has announced he will be the first nominee since JFK, the icon he hopes to succeed, to make his acceptance speech in a football stadium. After regularly attracting huge crowds in campaign backwaters during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton, he could probably fill the 76,000 seats at the Denver Broncos stadium on August 28 and then some.
Some argue that drawing such a blatant parallel with one of America's most revered presidents, immortalised by his assassination in 1963, invites trouble.
But much of the success of politicians such as Obama and Kennedy (and Ronald Reagan for that matter) is due to the fact that Americans are idealists. They almost crave politicians with grand visions capable of redefining a nation that is a juvenile, robust and shifting collection of peoples.
"American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions," said Robert Dallek, the historian and biographer of Kennedy and other presidents. "We have a great yearning for inspiring leadership."
The Democratic Party's 2008 nominee has often been compared to JFK. Like Kennedy, Obama is youngish, fresh-faced, eloquent and offers to take the country in a new direction. The ever-artful Obama has been careful to avoid making direct comparisons himself.
Rather, in his speeches, he compares the America of 1960 to the America of 2008, and the critical junctures faced: then, civil rights and outer space; now, healing a nation wounded by overseas conflicts and cultural wars at home.
He has left direct comparisons to the media and to the Kennedy family. He has received a thumping endorsement from JFK's youngest brother Ted Kennedy, while the assassinated president's daughter Caroline is working for the Obama campaign...