The Kennedy Factor, or, Why You Shouldn't Write Off Obama

48 years ago, the Democrats controlled congress, and a two term Republican President was stepping down. In competition to replace him were an accomplished Republican insider, and a young but upwardly mobile Democratic senator. He religion was an issue to some, but his progressive ideas on social policies, and an enthusiastic belief in America resulted in his being the youngest President ever elected.

Forgive me if that was a bit over simplistic. I'm aware of the subtelties and nuances of that time and place, but I wanted to briefly ilustrate those basic facts because I thought about all this for a while this evening after a minor epiphany. It starts with a confession. I have written Barak Obama off from the start. In my mind, a candidate who is young, black, and most of all, a Senator, simply faces too great a statistical improbability. Why, I thought to myself smugly, there hasn't been a Senator elected president since JFK.

And that's when myself began to suggest to me that our current election and JFK's election share quite a bit more in common than I was realizing. Oh, and if one Kennedy been elected, wasn't it possible another could be?

So, the question now became, how alike were Kennedy and Obama?

Some of the comparisons were obvious, as listed above. Obama is a young Senator, who has been described as follows:

"...In short, Obama -- young, thoughtful, intelligent, charismatic -- seems the only candidate with the potential to spark a true progressive revival."

JFK became the first Roman Catholic President. Becoming the first African American president is an obvious correlation. His wife is a modern Jackie O, glamorous in a 2008 kind of way, as a striking lawyer of imposing presence, and yet, dedicated to husband and family. Everywhere I go, I read that Obama is a hopemonger, an optimist, working for change, wanting to get people involved in the political process, and move America forward. These are the exact same phrases used to describe JFK's political appeal, and policies.

It's easy for me to be cynical, to predict a Hillary-Romney run off leading up to another four years of the same corrupt and self serving governance that has become the norm, but every now and then I have a moment where there is truly hope. I'm not implicity endorsing Obama; nor have I decided yet that he's who I'll vote for. The fact that I was able to truly feel some optimism in the possibilities, however, is a win for today.