As Peter noted, John F Kennedy is often seem as a political champion for the United States due to his resolving of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is viewed as one of the most potentially destructive moments in human history. However, he has not always been seen as such a champion, and is even deemed to have had major political failures. What surprised me was that his the practical success of his actions was often disjointed from his popular reputation as determined by the polls (which, granted, is by no means a perfect measure of a nations views). For example, the high point of his popularity, at 83%, counter-intuitively occurred shortly after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, which caused thousands of casualties with no gain. The low point, at 56%, was shortly after the civil rights march on Washington. We could interpret the polls in numerous ways: perhaps the numbers rose due to increased nationalism due to having Cuba as a common enemy, while the internal division of the nation over the civil rights was more disturbing to citizens than external strife. Some might say that polling is more or less random, but the validity of the numbers is somewhat substantiated by the logical progression of the late 1962 numbers: lower during the Cuban Missile Crisis due to the enormous tension and higher after its resolution due to the relief. Another point of interest is that in Texas up until immediately before his assassination, Kennedy’s numbers had diminished enough so that if the election were restaged in that state alone, he would lose his presidency. An article in the Houston Chronicle on the day of his assassination cited “an adverse reaction to the civil rights program” and general disenchantment with JFK’s administration as the reason for the slipping numbers. Why, then, have we become enchanted again if up until his death his reputation was in decline? Is the transformation purely due to his martyr-like death? Is it nostalgia? Is it due to better perspective due to the passage of time, or is it due to hindsight informed by more enlightened views of his work in the civil rights movement? According to a recent Times article, Kennedy is ranked #11 of all the presidents, despite dealing mainly in rhetoric and passing “very little in the way of funding or legislation.” Does this modern view coincide with past polls and historical events? How can possible changes be accounted for?
Works Cited:
Conway, Debra. “A Look At JFK’s Popularity Polls.” JFK News and Updates – JFK Lancer Blog. 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://jfklancernews.blogspot.com/2009/02/look-at-jfks-popularity-polls-by-debra.html>.
Hines, Nico. “The Greatest US Presidents – The Times US Presidential Rankings – Times Online.” The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion. 31 Oct. 2008. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5055404.ece>.
Houston Chronicle, “Chronicle Poll Sees Goldwater Over Kennedy” Nov. 22, 1963. “Gallup Poll had indicated that 63 per cent of Americans disapproved of the March [on Washington], and that 38 per cent thought he was pushing too fast on integration.” William F. Buckley Jr., National Review, December 31, 1994.