Ted Kennedy to endorse Obama on Monday

43 of the 73 historians in survey rated Kennedy as "overrated" If you hang Viet Nam on Johnson no way he could be considered more than below average.

 

Democratic primary voters tend to be liberal to moderate.
The Caroline endorsement will help across the spectrum.
The Ted endorsement may help swing the undecided liberal voters to Obama's corner. It may also help swing some of the undecided moderate Democrats to Obama's side.

You know Ted's going to endorse the Democrat in the general election so that endorsement won't be a factor in the general election. It's the primary where it matters and I think the Kennedy endorsements can swing some voters Obama's way.

 

FDR and Carter = overrated on that list

 

Having people like Kennedy and Kerry lets the casual observer know that Obama deserves to be taken seriously. Pretty important before Super Tuesday, when there won't be any retail politics.

 

The most notable thing here, it seems to me, is the way the Clintons again overplayed their hand by having Bill call and try to badger Ted – regarded today in my little red corner of the world as mostly a tragic figure - into not making the endorsement.

Now, Kennedy Inc. is pissed motivated to get out there and actually work hard for Obama. At the least, a fascinating development.

And, at some point, HRC is going to have to answer the question - with no tears, and no handing off the dirty work to Bubba - why some of the most significant people to work with her during her Senate term(s) don't think she's qualified to be president.

 

Sorry, Boom. Wishing doesn't make it so. And I already mentioned that JFK and RR are one/two as "most overrated."

If you don't like the results you get from two of the more conservative organizations in American life, then these rankings might make your head explode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents

 

Ok jg what made Kennedy such a great president?

 

Where did I ever say he's a great president? I never made an assertion one way or the other.

You said that he was one of our worst, though, and I simply responded by posting the work of a lot of historians and presidential scholars. They seem to think he's "above average."

I harbor no illusions about JFK's brief tenure in office. I think "above average" is probably about right for him. I also think "above average" is probably about right for Reagan.

Both are overmythologized and overpraised in popular surveys.

But Kennedy is nowhere near our worst.

 

Where do these people say they don't think she's qualified to be president? Just because they think someone else is a better potential nominee, that hardly means they're stating she's unqualified.

 

Being a child who was in the first grade when JFK was killed, it was always easy to buy into the hagiography.

But you grow up.

So it was bracing to read Paul Johnson's "Modern Times" back in the 1980s and see how little regard a British historian had for what Kennedy was able to actually accomplish during his 1,000 days. Certainly, his death put some issues (civil rights, the race for the moon) on the fast track, but we may never know just how close the Cuban Missle Crisis came to precipitating a shooting war with the Soviets. I think much of the wide perception of his greatness attaches to his premature death.

Truly assessing his qualities as president is as difficult as objectively assessing the lives of Marilyn Monroe of James Dean.They all died too soon and that tends to color our perceptions.

Still, you find me a Massachusetts Democrat war hero (!) Pulitzer Prize winner (!!) who wants to cut taxes and "pay any price" to defend American interests throughout the world and I will vote for him or her as many times as he or she wishes to run.

JFK couldn't get his own party's nomination today, sadly.

 

As I said earlier: Today he would be considered a moderate conservative.

 

Along the same lines, I've been fascinated the last twenty years by the canonization of President Reagan.