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Here...for the obtuse and reading challenged in the group...any of this sound like you?

Kennedy on the Campaign Trail
From May 21, 1960
MARY MCGRORY | ARCHIVED ARTICLE
C harleston, W. Va. — It may be possible to overestimate the triumph of Senator Kennedy in West Virginia. No one who was here, however, thinks so. For here the expressions of doubt or resentment over his Catholicism were rendered with a forthrightness that was hair-raising to those who are accustomed to a slight glossing over of statements of prejudice.

It was impossible to be in this State for half a day in this campaign and not be told: “I could never vote for a Catholic,” or “He would have to take orders from the Pope.”

The expressions on the faces of the Kennedy staff during the last week here were a measure of their dismay on being confronted by such a seemingly unscalable wall. True, there was evidence in the last week that a reaction had developed among more fair-minded people, some of whom felt that injustice was being done, and others of whom saw West Virginia’s good name being blackened beyond cleansing.

It was not, however, until Senator Kennedy went on television the Sunday night before the election and assured the people of West Virginia that he would not take instructions from the Pope that hope began to flower in the Kennedy camp. Immediately following that appearance, telephone calls began pouring into their headquarters. Several Protestant ministers pronounced themselves convinced that Senator Kennedy understood and honored the separation of Church and State.

Senator Kennedy’s handling of the thorny religious issue was brilliant. He protested its inclusion in the campaign several weeks ago in a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He repeatedly told the people of West Virginia that he refused to believe they would reject him on those grounds. Finally, with his frank statement on television Sunday night, on the eve of the voting, he apparently won them over.

The roots of prejudice are a little obscure to trace in this lovely, rugged State, where visiting reporters were often told by the natives: “We don’t know no Catholics here.” Why should they reject what they do not know and what represents no economic menace in a State where jobs are hard to find? Apparently their feelings were not fed to any great extent from the pulpits of their Fundamentalist churches. Nor were those feelings exacerbated by the furious discussion of the birth-control issue which raged in the press last December. They simply existed, and flared up when a man seeking the greatest national office materialized in their midst.

The conquest of prejudice, however, means that Senator Kennedy need no longer name his religion as an obstacle to nomination. More than that, as he said at an early morning press conference at his jubilant headquarters in Charleston: “I think that, after the campaign in this State, it will not be necessary to mention it again.” All present would certainly say a fervent “amen” to that.

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10475