Who did JFK get compared to?

Factual Questions
1

As seen in this thread, Barack Obama is the latest politician who’s got enough raw charisma to earn that ultimate political compliment: he reminds people of JFK.

JFK has been the gold standard in political charisma since before I was born. Everyone who can spellbind a room gets compared to him – see (Bill) Clinton, Blair, John Edwards, etc., in addition to Obama.

Which got me wondering: When JFK burst on the national scene, dazzling everyone with his charisma, who was he compared to? FDR? Lincoln? Churchill? Who was the gold standard in political charisma before 1960?

2

Both Roosevelts, actually. Like Teddy, JFK projected youth and vitality. They both had children who were young while they were president.

Like FDR, JFK could hold an audience quiet with a speech, and toss a humorous off-the-cuff remark to crack them up.

3

I agree, but Teddy especially. He was the youngest president ever to hold office (JFK was the youngest to win an election) and every single account of him talks of his youth, vitality, charisma, energy, and charm. (His daughter said of him that he wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.)

He’s probably still the gold standard today. He drops down a notch simply because he is out of living memory.

4

Teddy Roosevelt makes sense. If we had video footage of him in his prime, perhaps he’d still cast as long a shadow as JFK.

Which brings up two related questions:

Did the comparisons to JFK start when he ran for president or after he was killed? When did he become the modern benchmark for political charisma?

And will his era pass? It seems like Clinton might’ve had a chance to become a new reference point, and sometimes he’s invoked, but I suspect the scandals of his second term gave him too much baggage as a comparison. Who’s gonna be the JFK of tomorrow, for comparison purposes?

5

Maybe Al Smith? He was very charismatic and an Irish Catholic.

6

I don’t know if the term “charisma” was in wide use during the Kennedy era, I seem to recall the usual term was “telegenic.” But there was a push to have JFK as the vice-presidential candidate on the 1956 ticket. By the 1960 election it was widely accepted that he was a formidable campaigner. Of course, his death raised what had been an interesting quirk for political types into the stuff of legend.

As for who the next benchmark will be, one of the key factors is that the candidate will have to actually win. Jesse Jackson had loads of charisma when he ran, but he didn’t win. By that standard, Clinton still wins the prize.

7

On a related note, was the greatest thing before the invention of sliced bread?

8

Levened bread. People were tired of eating flat cracker type bread and welcomed hot doughy bread with great fanfair.

9

I don’t know who JFK was compared to, but I do think that Obama is the first politico I’ve seen who deserves the comparison to JFK. I find him to be a riveting public speaker.