On page 111 of Kennedy & Nixon, Chris Matthews talks
about what John F. Kennedy learned about the political process after
failing to become the 1956 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate:
“The 1956 experience…marked Kennedy’s metamorphosis from dilettante
to professional. ‘I’ve learned that you don’t get far in politics until
you become a total politician,’ he told his aides. ‘That means you’ve
got to deal with the party leaders as well as with the voters.’ The
Kennedy team learned another lesson from the loss: While a candidate’s
Senate colleagues may be big shots in Washington, they cannot be counted
on to deliver votes at a convention. The true power lay elsewhere. To
win a presidential nomination, Jack Kennedy and his organization
realized, they needed to get out and win support in the country itself.”
It’s good when a person can use a negative experience as a learning
opportunity. I’ve read some who say that Kennedy was pampered and
entitled. Well, this is not entirely fair, for his life was far from
perfect, since he lost a brother and dealt with immense health
problems. But he did have advantages due to who he was. And yet,
Kennedy learned that even he had to adapt to the world and work hard:
that not everything would be delivered to him on a silver platter.
Another story about the 1956 Presidential election: Did you know that
Robert Kennedy voted for the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket? Bobby was
traveling around with the campaign of Democratic candidate Adlai
Stevenson. Bobby liked Stevenson at first, but he came to question
Stevenson’s political judgment when Stevenson was attacking Nixon.
According to Matthews, Bobby felt that Stevenson was only preaching to
the choir—-and a minority, at that—-in attacking Nixon, and that
Stevenson was alienating Catholic and conservative Democrats who voted
for Eisenhower in 1952 and “identified more with Nixon’s grit than with
Stevenson’s eloquence” (Matthews’ words on page 113). Disappointed with
Stevenson, Bobby voted for Eisenhower-Nixon. But Matthews notes that
he did so “without fanfare”.