Democratic Media: '1960 DNC: John F. Kennedy Teams Up With Rival Lyndon B. Johnson'

Source:Democratic Media- U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) accepting the 1960 Democratic Party nomination for President, in Los Angeles, California.

"JFK's choice of LBJ helps to deliver Texas and shows running mates can help win elections." 

From Democratic Media

This is obviously a photo of then Senator John F. Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Texas) running for President and Vice President together in 1960, after Senator Kennedy nominated Leader Johnson to be his running mate at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California.

Source:Heritage Auctions- JFK and LBJ teaming up in 1960.

1960 was the last presidential election where a Vice Presidential nomination was the difference in who was elected President. Because Jack Kennedy already had the votes of the Liberal and Progressive Democrats. Especially in the North who could care less about Senator Kennedy being an Irish-Catholic, Northeastern Liberal from Massachusetts. 

But because of those factors Southern Democrats (who are Conservative Republicans today) weren't convinced that Jack Kennedy was acceptable enough to be President of the United States. Which is why Lyndon Johnson who was also the Leader of the Senate at the time, was so critical to this ticket, because he was a Southern Democrat at least regionally.

With the Kennedy-Johnson ticket, this meant Democrats could win both the Northeast and South, as well as California. Because Kennedy could work the liberal states and Johnson could work the Southern states. Because the Northeast was probably going to vote for Kennedy anyway, but with Johnson on the ticket, Johnson could convince Southern Democrats that an Irish-Catholic, Northeastern Liberal was acceptable enough to be President of the United States. And Senator Kennedy's speech to Southern Baptists in 1960 in Houston where he came out for being in favor of Separation of Church and State and that he wouldn't take orders from the Pope in policy and decision-making.

In some ways Democrats in 1960 had a dream ticket, with the future of the Democratic Party. A real superstar in the best sense of the word, not a flash in the pan running with the most powerful Democrat in the country. Someone who was more than qualified to be President of the United States 1960. 

This is not the last or first presidential election where the Vice Presidential nominee was important. It was also important in 1952 with Richard Nixon, 1976 with Walter Mondale, 1980 with George Bush, 1992 with Al Gore, 2000 with Dick Cheney, 2008 with Joe Biden. But 1960 was the last one where the VP nominee was able to deliver votes and states for the ticket. 

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James Miller Center: FDR Fireside Chat 7: 'On the Social Security Act- The History of Social Security'

Source:James Miller Center- President Franklin D. Roosevelt and company. 

"Edited version of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's seventh fireside chat, delivered April 28, 1935."

Source:James Miller Center

When Franklin Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1933, he had a mountain of challenges in front of him that he had to face. Dwarfing anything that President Obama inherited in 2009. The Great Depression was just starting and the country had at the time nothing to deal with it. No plan to get out of it and no safety net other than private charity to help sustain people as they go through it. These challenges were so big that it wasn't until World War II almost ten years later that America recovered from the Great Depression. Which is why President Roosevelt and others developed the New Deal and other legislation to deal with the Great Depression. And to establish a safety net in America.

Like Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and Welfare Insurance. Insurance programs that people can turn to when they can't support themselves. President Roosevelt brought economic progressivism into law in America. Something that we had very little of in America before that. We certainly didn't have a welfare state or even a safety net prior to the New Deal. We were basically an economic libertarian society before that, where everyone was on their own. And of course a lot if not most Libertarians would like to see us move back to that libertarian society. Where all Americans are responsible for taking care of themselves whether they are able to or not. Whether they have access to a pension or not, lose their job, makes mistakes early in life. Like having kids before they are ready to take care of them, etc.

Now I disagree with how a lot of these programs were designed originally. I believe most Americans would reform these programs in some way. Progressives would expand them, Liberals such as myself would decentralize them and turn them over to the states. Presidential candidate Gary Johnson has a plan to do that. Conservatives would privatize them all together and Libertarians would end them calling them unconstitutional. But what the New Deal and later Great Society in the 1960s, did was at least provide a basic floor for people to turn to. When for whatever reason they weren't able to fend for themselves and has been successful in doing that.

All of these programs need to be reformed in the financing like a lot the programs in the Federal Government. They didn't get us out of the Great Depression, at least on their own. World War II did most of the work on that, but the New Deal did for the first time in America, provide us with a basic safety net for the country. But a lot of these programs seventy-five plus years after they were created, need to be reformed. Because of how they were designed and need to be reformed to save them so they are there in the future. Part of President Roosevelt's legacy is that he transformed America into a country where we were basically on our own, into a country where at least to a certain extent we look after each other. Whether we want to or not, as Libertarians might phrase that. But the New Deal is not responsible for getting us out of the Great Depression. World War II and our involvement had a lot to do with that. 

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Napalm Captain: Michael Dukakis For President 1988- 'A New Era'

Source:Napalm Captain- Governor Michael Dukakis (Democrat, Massachusetts)

“Michael Dukakis: We’re going to build the kind of America where hard work is rewarded, where American goods and American workmanship are the best in the world. That’s what this election is all about.

Narrator: He turned around the ten-year economic slide and created a boom that has made Massachusetts one of the hottest economies in the country. He brought people together, created over four hundred t jobs and pushed personal income to the highest levels in the nation. He erased a massive deficit, balanced ten budgets in a row and cut taxes five times. It wasn’t a miracle. It was leadership.

Michael Dukakis: By working together to create opportunity and a good life for all, all of us are enriched, not just in economic terms but as citizens and as human beings.

Narrator: For a new era of economic greatness in America, Michael Dukakis for president.”

From Napalm Captain 

On paper going into the 1988 presidential election, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts was a perfect presidential candidate to go against Vice President George Bush. He was a popular successful governor of a major state, a heavily Democratic state. Unlike Walter Mondale he had no ties to the Carter Administration. He was an outsider a governor. Someone with considerable executive experience running a major state.

Governor Dukakis, was an outsider running against the ultimate insider who since 1967 when George Bush took his seat in the House, was working in Washington and the Federal Government in some capacity. Except from 1977-81 when he was running for president and later vice president.

The Democratic Party had just won back the Senate in 1986 and added to their majority in the House. Iran Contra was still fresh in people’s minds politically speaking. Governor Dukakis was similar to Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Mike Dukakis was of course a Northeastern or Massachusetts Liberal as he was labeled by Vice President Bush and others. But not some Far-Left Socialist which is how Reverend Jackson was labeled, but a Classical Liberal Democrat. Someone who believed in individual liberty and limited government.

Governor Dukakis, supported things as Governor of Massachusetts that became law by the Federal Government 5-10 years later. Like Welfare to Work, Three Strikes Law that was in the 1994 Crime bill, gun control same bill, deficit reduction. Mike Dukakis’s politics were pretty similar to Jack Kennedy, another Northeastern Massachusetts Liberal Democrat.

Mike Dukakis was even likable, reserve and cool sure which hurt him with connecting with voters in the general election. But he was up 17 points over George Bush when the Democratic Convention was over. So the Bush Campaign made a similar calculation that they did when they were trailing Bob Dole back in January and February 1988. That they aren’t going to beat Dukakis by showing America how great a guy George Bush was. That the way to beat Dukakis was to make him look like a bad guy, as someone who was Un-American, unpatriotic, soft on crime, etc. Someone who was a Far-Left Democrat that’s unacceptable to be President of the United States.

That’s why we saw the controversial Willy Horton ad, and the commercial of Mike Dukakis in a tank. All thanks to Lee Atwater George Bush’s chief political strategist. And with the Dukakis Campaign playing dead on these ads thinking that Americans won’t believe them and take them seriously. This is where we heard the term an attack that’s not responded to, must be the truth. And these ads killed Mike Dukakis’s chances of winning that campaign. Mike Dukakis brought a twig to a Gun Fight and got his head handed to him.

Mike Dukakis represents to me how not to run a presidential campaign. That its good to share your personal story and your family history and how you worked your way up in America. And what you want to do as President, but that you also have to understand that presidential elections are also wars. That if you don’t fight back it’s just as good as surrendering and you’ll get beat. And this is a lesson the Bill Clinton learned in 1992, with his War Room with Jim Carville and others. And while they were so able to respond to any attacks that were thrown at them in 1992. 

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Firing Line With William F. Buckley: Christopher Hitchens & Emmett Tyrell- 'Is There a Liberal Crack-Up? (1984)'

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley- self-described Socialist writer Christopher Hitchens, when he wrote for the socialist magazine The Nation, on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1984.

"Episode S0629, Recorded on December 11, 1984. Guests: R. (Robert Emmett) Emmett Tyrrell Jr., Christopher Hitchens. For more information about this program, see:Hoover Institution" 

From Firing Line With William F. Buckley 

"The 1984 election suggested, as WFB puts it, "the collapse of liberalism as we

have known it during the past half century," and he asks his two guests, one on the right, the other on the far left, where liberalism is likely to go from here. Messrs. Hitchens and Tyrrell actually talk more about the past than about the future, and it is illuminating (when they don't indulge in billingsgate) to get such different takes on the same set of events. CH: "I believe that the American Left, in starting the civil-rights movement for black Americans, in combating an unjust war in Indochina, and in beginning the emancipation of women ... changed the way everyone thinks and the way everyone lives ... the whole world is in debt to the American Left for these three enterprises." RET: "In the Sixties and Seventies the liberals achieved most of the things they set out to achieve, particularly welfare and civil rights, and then were overtaken by a lust for power. They refused to notice that they had indeed achieved these things ... 

From the Hoover Institution

By the time the late 1970s came around, it was rough time to be a Democrat. The Democratic Party was becoming divided and running out of ideas in where to take the country. So-called Progressives (Democratic Socialists, in actuality) wanted to pass the next installment of the Great Society, what's called the Fair Deal: single payer health care, universal higher education, return to the high tax rates of the 1950s, etc. 

The New Democrats (the real Progressives) wanted to freeze new social insurance spending and balanced the Federal budget. And Conservative Democrats were becoming Conservative Republicans. 

Progressivism was the ruling political ideology in the Democratic Party and in the United States from 1933-81. There was a feeling that the Federal Government wasn't big enough. Conservatives make a big comeback in the late 1970s just as the Far-Left of the Democratic Party wanted to take over the party and move it way to the left and the Democratic Party becomes divided as a result, with the Progressives wanting to govern the party and country from the Center-left. 

There was a tax revolt in California and in other places in the country led by Howard Jarvis and his group, Kemp-Roth is proposed in Congress (Senator William Roth and Representative Jack Kemp) 1978-79. Which became the Economic Recovery Act in 1981 signed by President Reagan. And after having their clocks handed to them (to put it mildly) in 1980, the Democratic Party wasn't sure where to go. And I believe they basically settled for Walter Mondale in 1984, who was President Carter's Vice President. 

See Progress: 'The Progressive Values of the U.S. Constitution'

Source:Center For American Progress- talking about the U.S. Constitution.

"A panel explores the progressive values of the Constitution at the Center for American Progress's annual "American Idea Conference" in Washington, D.C.

Featuring:

Richard Beeman, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

Jeff Shesol, Author, "Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court"

Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress

Akhil Amar, Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University" 

From See Progress

To me the U.S. Constitution is an individualist document designed to protect, promote, and advance individual liberty and limited government. Limited government being the key factor, the belief that if government becomes very big, it gets big at the expense of individual liberty, because it makes the people more dependent on government. Thats one of the beauty's of living in a liberal democracy especially if you are a Liberal. 

But I would argue for anyone who's not a Socialist, that individual liberty is protected to the point that we have constitutional rights protecting our individual liberty. Not a government designed to take care of the people, that we have the liberty to make our own lives better. 

There is a Welfare Clause in the U.S. Constitution, but that doesn't mean that government funded by taxpayers, but that doesn't mean that government is supposed to protect the country. But more about protecting the country from things that individuals can't do for themselves. Like being attacked by armed criminals, being attacked by a foreign country, being held hostage, people out of work not able to fend for themselves. Or are disabled and can't work enough to take care of themselves or can't work at all.  

If your definition of Progressive is Progressive in the classical (or I would argue real) sense that you are someone who believes in progress and that government is supposed to promote progress and work to make things better for people and for society, then you could argue that the U.S. Constitution is progressive, because it allows for government to try to make things better for the society. 

But if your definition of Progressive is more a pop culture political sense and that Progressives are supposed to be anti-establishment, anti-man (especially straight, Caucasian men) that Progressives are supposed to be radical, hippie, Socialists and are supposed to hate everything that America stands for and it's the job of Progressives who take down the current government and replace it with something that's supposed to be more Progressive, which are the basically the current stereotypes of what's supposed to pass as a so-called Progressive today, then of course the U.S. Constitution is not Progressive. 

Our Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) didn't break away from one authoritarian state (the United Kingdom) to create a socialist state in the United States. But wanted to create a society in America where Americans were free to be Americans, which is free to be ourselves and have the freedom to live our own lives and make our own decisions. With a limited government there to protect our freedoms, but not run our lives for us. 

Learn Liberty: Dr. Nigel Ashford- 'The History of Classical Liberalism'

Source:Learn Liberty- Dr. Nigel Ashford, talking about classical liberalism. The real liberalism.

"Historian Stephen Davies describes classical liberalism as a comprehensive philosophy, which has had implications in all the major academic disciplines.  Learn More:Learn Liberty.

At an abstract level, classical liberalism offers three key insights:

1) The goal of life is human happiness and flourishing. 
2) Personal choice and individual liberty are crucial in explaining and appreciating how society develops.
3) Commerce, wealth, and trade are preferable to war and conflict.

If you agree with these classical liberal insights, you might be a classical liberal!

Source:Learn Liberty

The Professor in this video does a pretty good job of laying out what classical liberalism is. That it's about individual liberty and protecting individual liberty and is skeptical of power. Governmental power or too much power in the private sector. Because as the Professor says power is the ability to make people do what they otherwise wouldn't do. And liberalism is also about rule of law, not being so-called soft on crime as people have stereotyped Liberals. But that government should protect people from the harm of others, not try to protect people from themselves.

Liberalism is about individual liberty and limited government, which those being the main two principles. All other aspects of liberalism get to that. How to promote, advance and protect individual liberty. About individualism not collectivism which is about expanding government and spending more on social insurance. Or creating new social insurance programs, but laying out exactly what government should be doing. Socialism is about welfare state programs and using those programs so none has too much or too little, as they would see it.

Again, the role of liberalism is to promote, advance and protect individual liberty. The constitutional rights of individuals to live their own lives and be as successful in life as their production will allow. To take out of life what they put into it and limiting government to doing what it can and does well. And what it only can do and should do. Not having government try to solve every problem that society faces.

And these are the things that liberalism is about, coming from liberty. It's not socialism or even but like progressivism trying to use government to make society better. It is progressive though, because again it's about promoting, advancing and protecting individual liberty for all, not just some. In the early 20th Century during the Teddy Roosevelt era which was called the Progressive Era, there was this feeling that America had to much inequality. And that a lot of Americans were falling through the cracks in the economy and that government should step in and solve these programs.

That government should create things like Unemployment Insurance, National Health Insurance, protecting workers rights and worker Safety. And a lot of these things were achieved in the FDR New Deal in the 1930s. These are all progressive policy's and a lot of Liberals all support these goals. But these aren't liberal policy's, because they are about using government to help people in need. Instead of empowering people in need to help themselves become self-sufficient.

And some so-called Liberals may sound similar as Liberals, but they are different because a lot of people who are called Liberals today, are really not. They have some liberal positions on most if not all social issues. But they tend to have  social democratic views on economic policy. And that government especially the Federal Government should be a lot bigger to solve the problems that society faces. It's great that people who actually understand what liberalism is and what it's about speak out about it.

Liberals whether you want to call us Classical Liberals, (which is fine if you're talking about John F. Kennedy) should give speeches and lectures about it and even make videos about it. Because a lot of Americans especially in the media don't understand what liberalism is. And get it mixed up with progressivism and democratic socialism. Which unlike liberalism aren't individualist ideology's, but collectivist ideology's using government through high tax rates to make society equal. Where liberalism is about using government to make people freer so we can all as a society enjoy individual liberty.

Liberalism is a political ideology based on realism and the real word. It's not about perfection and making the world as perfect and great for everyone, but instead creating a society where as many people as possible can thrive and achieve individual freedom for themselves. The ability for as many people as possible to live in freedom and make their own economic and personal decisions and then live with the consequences of those decision for the best and worst of their decisions. Doesn't sound very idealistic or realistic and something that some Hollywood movie would be based on that prefers socialism because of how romantic and idealistic it is. But liberalism is based on realism and how the world really works. Where the best decisions tend to be made.

Inside App: 'President Lyndon Johnson Signs Medicare Law'

Source:Inside App- President Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Texas) signing President Harry Truman's idea into law, in 1965.

"The Medicare and Medicaid bill passes both houses of congress by an overwhelming vote.  President Johnson signs it into law on July 30, 1965.  Harry Truman was present at the signing and Johnson helped Truman sign-up for Medicare." 

From Inside App

Source:Lyndon B. Johnson Library- President Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Texas) signing President Harry Truman's idea into law, in 1965.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law that guarantees health insurance for senior citizens provided by the Federal Government and financed by an increase in the payroll tax, President Johnson finished off part of President Harry Truman’s presidential legacy. His Fair Deal agenda that he tried to pass through Congress. But since the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1947 and with President Truman’s unpopularity, he wasn’t able to pass it through Congress.

Lyndon Johnson was actually in Congress during the Truman Administration. (Both House and Senate) Elected to the Senate in 1948, actually served in Congress during the entire Truman presidency. And was in House during the first four years of the Truman Presidency. Both Truman and Johnson were New Deal Democrats on economic policy. So signing Medicare into law in I believe was a big deal to both Truman and Johnson and why President Truman was at the Medicare signing ceremony.

Health insurance for senior citizens is something that both Truman and Johnson were fighting for a long time. But a couple of Republican Congress’s, one in the late 1940s and another in the early 1950s, as well as the Eisenhower Administration, got in the way of Medicare coming into law. Actually, President Truman wanted to go farther and create a single payer health care system, but for the same reasons wasn’t able to get that done.

The legacy of Medicare I believe overall is pretty good, because it’s guaranteed health insurance for senior citizens as it was intended to. It wasn’t designed to become a single payer health insurer. That would essentially be the sole health insurer for everyone in the country. And outlawing private health insurers. If President Johnson wanted to do that, he probably would’ve proposed that. Because he had huge 2/3 majorities in the House and Senate up until 1967. When Congressional Republicans picked up a bunch of seats in both the House and Senate.

So President Johnson basically had three years to propose a single payer Medicare For All health care system, if he wanted to. But chose not to for whatever reasons. Perhaps he didn’t believe in a government-run health care system like they had at the time in the United Kingdom. Perhaps he didn’t believe the country was ready for that type of health care system or even wanted that. Perhaps he believed he didn’t have the votes for it.

Perhaps President Johnson didn’t have the votes for Medicare For All, with probably all Congressional Republicans voting against it, led by House Minority Leader Gerry Ford, Souse Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, Senator Barry Goldwater and others. As well as the Southern Caucus of Democrats in Congress. 

Medicare has been very positive in guaranteeing health insurance for all of our senior citizens and at the time was considered revolutionary. But today would seem somewhat mainstream like and not trying to upset anyone or chop down a tree. But something that a consensus of Americans would support. 

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