Kennedy versus Lodge; The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race

Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. xii, 216, [4] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Selected Bibliography. Index. Foreword by Robert Dallek. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Thomas J. Whalen is an Associate Professor of Social Science at Boston University and author of Kennedy versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race. Whalen's latest book, A Higher Purpose: Profiles in Presidential Courage, resurrects Truman and eight other American leaders and the moments that defined their political careers, using John F. Kennedy's 1955 best seller, Profiles in Courage, as a touchstone. An expert in modern American politics, American foreign policy, and the American presidency, Whalen's expert commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the AP. He has also appeared on several national broadcast outlets, including CNN, NPR, and Reuters TV. In November 1952 a relatively unknown Congressman John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, jr. This book provides an analysis of the campaign and assesses strategies employed by Kennedy that would come into play eight years later during his presidential campaign against Nixon. In November 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election by a landslide vote. In Massachusetts, however, a relatively unknown and inexperienced Congressman John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., to become only the third Democrat in the Commonwealth's history elected to the United States Senate. The victory signaled the dawn of a new political era and proved to be an equally decisive moment in determining the future careers of both candidates. In Kennedy versus Lodge, Thomas J. Whalen provides a penetrating analysis of this pivotal campaign and tells the fascinating story of a political duel between two families that spanned nearly half a century. Bringing together a wealth of material, he shows how Kennedy beat Lodge through a combination of fortuitous circumstances and deft use of pioneering electioneering tactics. Whalen details how the candidates' different backgrounds influenced their attitudes toward public service and electoral politics, examines the structure and effectiveness of their campaign organizations, and discusses the intra-party squabbles that each man had to deal with. In addition, he considers how Kennedy's triumph marked the shift from Republican to Democratic dominance in post-war Massachusetts.The author assesses strategies employed by Kennedy that would come into play eight years later in his presidential campaign against Richard M. Nixon, giving special attention to the ways in which he exploited the new medium of television and courted the women's vote. Whalen reveals how Lodge was crippled by conservative Robert Taft Republicans who withheld their support as revenge for his leadership role in Eisenhower's bid for the presidential nomination, and he discusses the sensitive issue for both candidates of Senator Joseph McCarthy's proposed involvement in the campaign. Kennedy versus Lodge offers a well-researched and objective perspective on both a key Senate race and a political rivalry that forever changed the landscape of electoral politics in America.