W. Va.’s 1960 primary made history
The headlines were impressive and unmistakable. “Trump All But Clinches Nomination With Indiana Win” ran atop a New York Times story. “Trump All But Seals … Nomination” blared the Washington Post.
It was reminiscent of other headline stories in other times. Specifically, a big political win that took place on the borders of western Pennsylvania 56 years ago this month. Sen. John F. Kennedy’s victory in the spring of 1960 in the West Virginia Democratic primary effectively clinched his nomination for president.
Kennedy arrived at that year’s Democratic convention in Los Angeles without having secured a majority of delegates, which might have been Trump’s predicament had not all of his opponents bowed out early.
Without West Virginia, it is doubtful that Kennedy would have survived the political infighting that was a feature of party conventions in the days before the nearly ubiquitous use of state primaries to pick the nominees. The anybody-but-Trump crowd in the GOP was hoping the party’s Phildelphia convention would deadlock, clearing the way for another candidate.
Kennedy’s big break at the 1960 Democratic convention occurred when the Pennsylvania delegation, following the lead of boss David L. Lawrence, voted to back Jack. It was a near thing. Lawrence, governor at the time, was wary of Kennedy’s ability to carry the election in the fall against Republican Richard Nixon, the sitting vice president.
It was Protestant West Virginia that convinced Lawrence, a Catholic like Kennedy, that JFK had the moxie and political muscle to slay the country’s anti-Catholic dragon when it came to electing a chief executive.
Simple put, without West Virginia, John Kennedy doesn’t get nominated, doesn’t get elected.
The annual anniversary of the West Virginia primary occurs just as the trees shed their winter gloom. Election day was Tuesday, May 10. Kennedy spent two weeks solid campaigning in the Mountain State, arriving on the heels of a narrow victory in Wisconsin over Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the only other Democrat desperate or crazy enough for the nomination to enter even one of that year’s 10 primaries.
The other hopefuls, including Lyndon Johnson, chose to take an insider’s route to the nomination. That way was barred to both Kennedy and Humphrey, as well as this year to Trump.
Kennedy needed to knock Humphrey out of the race. He needed to prove his electability. He hoped to use West Virginia to make the case for himself.
JFK overcame a deficit in the early polling. How did he do it? By organizing the state down to the grassroots. The Kennedy political team was the first on the ground in West Virginia.
The superb Kennedy ground game worked because it was attached to a thoroughbred of a campaigner. Having sharpened his political stump skills in his home state of Massachusetts, and across the country, starting in 1956, Kennedy roared past Humphrey, who rode to defeat in a battered campaign bus.
Kennedy also used a bus and an airplane. Like Trump, Kennedy never hid the fact that he was wealthy. The fact that Kennedy, famous and handsome as well as rich, showed up in grimy coal towns and at mine portals and factory gates asking for their votes, seemed to charm West Virginians.
He told voters Humphrey could never win the nomination. Why waste their votes? In the White House, he said, he would look after their state’s interests.
West Virginia’s Republican governor, Nixon, the absentee Democratic candidates for president, and even Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa, all became fodder for Kennedy.
At one point, the candidate had the audacity to put them all in one sentence, charging that Gov. Underwood was attacking him as Nixon’s surrogate “because the vice president as well as other Democratic candidates who aren’t running here, and Jimmy Hoffa, say West Virginia is the place to stop Kennedy.”
“I do not believe the people of West Virginia will have any part of this,” Kennedy said.
If it’s true, as Hunter Thompson wrote in 1972, that “you almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics”, then Kennedy blazed that trail in 1960, though he didn’t view himself in the same narcissistic light as The Donald.
In West Virginia, he would actually introduce himself to voters and ask to shake their hand.
In Morgantown, he shook hands on High Street. In Wheeling, he took a swig of beer before addressing a crowd packed into a bar. In Hinton, he spoke from a flatbed trailer. In Chesapeake, he greeted voters in a tumble-down backyard.
He spoke with a sense of urgency, always hoping to reach and persuade people.
“West Virginia needs to build new industries and new jobs,” Kennedy said, “to rebuild its older industries and help its older workers, to rebuild its schools and highways.”
The May 11, 1960, headline in the Washington Post declared, “Kennedy Sweeps W. Va. Vote.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.