[ClearCase_guy]

Kennedy wasn't even allowed to serve out his first, yet his appeal was so strong it's generally agreed that a majority of the voters would have reelected him.

We need to kill this myth.

He was in office a little more than 2 and half years.

Bay of Pigs Scandal.
Assassination of President Diem of South Vietnam (we killed our own ally).
Cuban Missile Crisis.
He had enormous trouble passing legisalation.
He went to Dallas because he was losing popularity rapidly in LBJ's state.

He was on the way to being Jimmy Carter. Fortunately, for him, he was martyred.

[Hardastarboard]

He went to Dallas because he was losing popularity rapidly in LBJ's state.

He was on the way to being Jimmy Carter. Fortunately, for him, he was martyred.

You posted it before I got to it. Exactly right. He was a Democrat who was losing the South before it went Republican. As a side note, had the media been honest about his whoring, he would have had to resign mid-term. The media, then as now, protected a favored Democrat president.

[dsc]

"Kennedy wasn't even allowed to serve out his first, yet his appeal was so strong it's generally agreed that a majority of the voters would have reelected him."

Which is why election fraud was necessary to get him a first term?

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't think it's possible to say if Kennedy would have been re-elected. There's a good chance Goldwater would have been the Republican nominee anyway, and Kennedy probably could have beaten Barry. (Of course, Barry wouldn't have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it would have never gotten through Congress if Kennedy had still been alive.)

I found an old issue of The Economist written just before the Kennedy assassination, and they painted a pessimistic picture of his re-election prospects as of that date.