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==Nomination==
==Nomination==
By 1960 JFK was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination to face [[Richard M. Nixon]], with the biggest question mark whether his Catholic base of support would be outweighed by anti-Catholicism of the sort that hurt [[Al Smith]] so badly in 1928. Of course prohibition was no longer an issue, and fear of Tammany-like bossism had faded away with the demise of most big city machines. The Kennedy juggernaut defeated rival [[Hubert Humphrey]], a liberal, in the West Virginia primary, a state with so much poverty and so few Catholics that party leaders were convinced they had a winner. Kennedy won over the party’s intellectuals by his effective academic connections, while shaming doubters by a brilliant performance before the Protestant ministers of Houston. There he enunciated the position that he did not speak for the Catholic Church on matters of religion, and it did not speak for him on public affairs. He was able to take that position because there were no high intensity moral issue such as abortion at that time.
When Adlai Stevenson allowed the delegates to choose the vice-presidential nominee in 1956, Kennedy sought the position but was narrowly defeated by Stevenson's two-time primary rival, liberal Senator [[Estes Kefauver]] of [[Tennessee]].
By 1960, JFK was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination to face [[Richard M. Nixon]], with the biggest question mark whether his Catholic base of support would be outweighed by anti-Catholicism of the sort that hurt [[Al Smith]] the 1928 race against [[Herbert Hoover]]. Prohibition was no longer an issue, and fear of Tammany-like bossism had faded away with the demise of most big city machines. The Kennedy juggernaut defeated rival [[Hubert Humphrey]], a fellow liberal, in the West Virginia primary, a state with so much poverty and so few Catholics that party leaders were convinced they had a winner. Kennedy won over the party’s intellectuals by his effective academic connections, while shaming doubters by a brilliant performance before the Protestant ministers of Houston. There he enunciated the position that he did not speak for the Catholic Church on matters of religion, and it did not speak for him on public affairs. He was able to take that position because there were no high intensity moral issue such as abortion at that time.
Although Kennedy’s religiosity consisted of nominal attendance at Sunday Mass, he excited tens of millions of Catholics who saw his election as president as confirmation of their full recognition as true Americans. With 8 of 10 Catholics voting for Kennedy, he ran up majorities in ethnic strongholds like Chicago that provided the narrow margin of victory against Richard Nixon. Apart from a few pockets of anti-popery among some Midwestern Lutherans and Southern Baptists, fears of Catholicism largely disappeared from the voting booth after 1960, and Kennedy gets credit for bringing Catholics into the American political mainstream.
Although Kennedy’s religiosity consisted of nominal attendance at Sunday Mass, he excited tens of millions of Catholics who saw his election as president as confirmation of their full recognition as true Americans. With 8 of 10 Catholics voting for Kennedy, he ran up majorities in ethnic strongholds like Chicago that provided the narrow margin of victory against Richard Nixon. Apart from a few pockets of anti-popery among some Midwestern Lutherans and Southern Baptists, fears of Catholicism largely disappeared from the voting booth after 1960, and Kennedy gets credit for bringing Catholics into the American political mainstream.