The Nation: The Making of a President

If the rule of reason brings you to the position that happens to be the liberal position, it is the one you have to take, but not just because it is liberal. In 1960 that is my position. It was Roosevelt's in 1932.

Thus, amid the changing winds of the 1960 presidential campaign, Democrat John Kennedy paused for a moment of political self-analysis. At that point, Kennedy's acute sense of political reason told him that the path of liberalism was the one most likely to lead him to the White HouseĀ—and he was running as a liberal who wholeheartedly endorsed...

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