The 1960s Youth who Supported JFK and RFK are Today’s Senior Voters for Amy Kennedy
As Joe Biden approaches victory in the presidential race, a substantial factor in his success is the wholesale defection to him of senior citizens who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. This is creating a down ballot benefit for Democratic candidates throughout the nation.
In New Jersey’s Second Congressional District, Democratic challenger Amy Kennedy goes into the last weekend of the campaign as the favorite over incumbent Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew. And as in all Congressional contests in New Jersey, with the exception of incumbent Republican Congressman Chris Smith in District Four, a majority of the seniors are supporting the Democratic candidate.
But Amy Kennedy has an additional factor going for her with senior voters. The great majority of the youth of the 1960s idolized John F. Kennedy as their role model and leader of hope. His assassination on November 22, 1963 was a traumatic moment in their lives.
After the passing of JFK, these youth focused their hopes for a better nation on Robert F. Kennedy. His assassination on June 4, 1968 left his millions of youthful supporters, Black and White, bereft of hope.
Yet as Ted Kennedy, Amy’s father-in-law, spoke at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, the dream shall never die. This was evident to me when I spent a day during the primary covering Amy campaigning among seniors, one an African-American gathering, the other White.
With the African-Americans, there was a feeling towards the Kennedys that bordered on religiosity. The memory of John F. Kennedy introducing the civil rights legislation that passed after his death as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is hallowed. So is the memory of Robert Kennedy calming the gathering of thousands of African-Americans in Indianapolis after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968.
Among both the Black and White gatherings of seniors, you could perceive a fervent desire to recapture that special feeling of hope that JFK and RFK conveyed to them in the 1960s. Indeed, that is the essence of senior citizen voting in the Second Congressional District in this election: The 1960s youth who supported JFK and RFK are today’s senior voters for Amy Kennedy.
Amy inherited a great American political heritage when she married former Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island and persuaded him to move to South Jersey.
She brought into the marriage a great political heritage of her own. Her father, Jerry Savell was a freeholder in Atlantic County who took a lead role in Atlantic County Democratic politics for decades.
When Amy campaigns, she displays the exquisite communication skills of a seasoned veteran. If Amy wins on Tuesday, as I expect, she will play a unique role in the next Democratic Congressional Caucus.
She is definitely a progressive, but without the socialist radicalism that is the tone of the rhetoric of such Democrats as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Amy will be an effective force for Democratic Congressional unity and may indeed emerge as a future Speaker.
Indeed, Patrick Kennedy can be proud. His wife, Amy is the most politically savvy person who ever married into the Kennedy family!
Alan Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
TRUE……Amy Kennedy married into the Kennedy family.
TRUE……She has a political heritage of her own.
Regardless, ……Amy can stand on her own.
AMY IS AUTHENTIC, SHE IS TRUE TO HERSELF, HER BELIEFS.
She resides in and will be loyal to CD 2.
She is in this contest to better the lives of her future constituents
……………..NOT for power or greed.
CD 2 can send Amy to Washington with pride.
That’s ridiculous. This woman brings nothing to the table except name recognition and maybe money. If her name were Smith or Jones, she would have never entered the race.
Amy’s last name could be Smith, and she would still be an OUTSTANDING candidate.
She brings to the table 12 years of teaching experience.
This requires organizational skills, stamina, and kindness
to name just a very few qualities needed to be a successful
teacher/educator.
She, also, brings to the table exactly what Joe Biden
brings to the table. She brings honor, competency.
intelligence, dignity, communication skills, decency.
All the qualities which are so sadly lacking in the
present administration.
She DOES NOT bring to the table cruelty and indifference.
(See Don Winslow’s video… Please SAVE These Children)
Nor does she feel the need to purchase $50,000.00 worth of support.
(See ..Callaway Jeers at Kennedy Ground Game by Max Pizarro
October 24, 2020.)
PS……Please note that I do not call your comment ridiculous;
……….nor do I infer that it is.
I would suggest Alan talk to Senator “Jersey Joe” Pennacchio who was one of those youth of the 60’s that became excited about politics because of Robert Kennedy and his brother President John F. Kennedy who tried to chart a Frontier path for the Democratic Party, that included a Space Program whose goals were to put our future in conquering the solar system and as JFK put it “Beyond”, and whose technological applications would create new, higher order industries that would accept those graduates of all levels of application, no matter what their race, religion, creed, to have continuing upward mobility. Long ago when the Democratic Party gave up that vision in favor identity politics and voting in favor of every war the intelligence community and their mouthpieces could invent, many of the best representatives of that “Good” tradition, like now Senator Pennacchio, voted with their feet. While I have not formally left the Democratic Party, there are millions like me who cling to the hope that it still might be rescued , by the lremnants of the anti-war, anti-Wall Street, pro-growth factions of particularly youngsters like Tulsi Gabbard and others that can find common ground to save the nation before the Constitutional intent of the nation evaporates.
And just having the name Kennedy doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. As someone once said during a Vice Presidential debate, “I knew Jack Kennedy, and you are no Jack Kennedy”.
That’s funny. I and most of us boomers who were with the Tea Party in 2010 and supporting Trump and Van Drew today also were John F. Kennedy Democrats. LibertyAndProsperity.com
My parents had a picture of JFK hanging in the house, right next to Jesus. They walked away from the Democrats during the Johnson years. I wonder if Amy’s picture is hanging in anybody’s house?