I was barely old enough to be dimly aware that Presidents are elected and that there is a difference between a democracy and a democratic republic. But I was old enough to be entranced by the candidate.
As the years since have become decades, and decades have become measurable as generations, John F. Kennedy has remained a sort of standard, for me, by which others are to be measured.
Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon were not antagonists in the couple of years during which they were both in Congress. Some accounts had them as friends who enjoyed each other’s company. Nixon was elected Senator from California in 1950 after an extraordinarily vicious campaign against incumbent Helen Gahagan Douglas. If Douglas was not a communist, the Nixon campaign held, she was at least a fellow traveler. “Pink right down to her underwear” became part of that year’s ugly narrative.
In private, Kennedy defended Nixon when most observers held the new Senator in distain for his dirty tactics. The friendship continued through most of the 1950s as Richard Nixon became Eisenhower’s Vice President and John F. Kennedy was elected the junior Senator from Massachusetts.
Somewhere along the line things soured. It may have been in 1960 as both won party nominations for President and campaigned against each other.
A steady pattern of small incidents seemed to demonstrate a lack of Nixon class. The candidates held the first televised debates in American history. They talked with each other casually as television preparations occurred around them. Kennedy noticed that, at odd moments, Nixon’s demeanor would suddenly change for a few seconds. He would scowl and point his finger at Kennedy’s face while talking about some personal triviality. The pattern became clear. It happened whenever Nixon noticed some photographer about to snap a picture. He wanted to look tougher than his opponent.
In the end, the election was close. As election night wore on it became apparent that Kennedy was going to win. When would Nixon concede?
Nixon aide Herb Klein made an appearance. It was tough to face defeat, he began, but Republicans needed to keep their chins up. The Kennedy team was impatient. What the hell was that about? How about conceding?
At a little after 11 that night, Richard Nixon made an appearance in California. Would that be it? But Nixon made it clear he was not conceding.
It is normally the custom for a candidate for the presidency or for any other office not to appear until after the decision is definitely known and all the votes are counted beyond doubt.
So no, it was not a concession speech. But before it was too late at night he wanted to thank his supporters. He said that if trends continued, Kennedy might be the winner. And if that happened Nixon would be wishing him the best.
Kennedy aides were put out. Half a century or so later, I remembered reading about that anger as I watched a televised movie on ancient Rome. A military leader expresses pretend irritation when German tribes refuse to surrender to Roman forces. “People should know when they’re conquered.”
But Kennedy wasn’t having it. He told his staff to knock it off. If he was in Nixon’s position, he wouldn’t concede either. When the votes were in, he told his people, Nixon would concede. Count on it.
Eventually Nixon had no choice. He sent a telegram, and had poor Herb Klein, the keep-your-chin-up aide read it in a minor press briefing. Absent was any gratitude toward staff and volunteers. No mention of a hard fought campaign. It was not even in person.
Kennedy reluctantly agreed with the view of his staff. Nixon was not capable of even the slightest bit of grace in defeat.
In the end, Kennedy claimed victory. It looked off-the-cuff. He read Nixon’s telegram. Unmentioned ever since was one bit of irony. The winning candidate was giving his opponent’s concession speech, abrupt as it was. Kennedy read Nixon’s telegram:
I want to repeat through this wire congratulations and best wishes I extended to you on television last night. I know that you have united support of all Americans as you lead this nation in the cause of peace and freedom during the next four years.
Kennedy then read the reply he had sent back. Generations later, it occurs to me his words were carefully chosen.
Your sincere good wishes are gratefully accepted. You are to be congratulated on a fine race. I know that the nation can continue to count on your unswerving loyalty in whatever effort you undertake, and that you and I can maintain our longstanding cordial relations in the years ahead.
Long standing cordial relations. So much for the earlier friendship.
Kennedy’s assassination a thousand days later was, for me, a searing childhood experience. It etched into my mind an era of intelligent national leadership and its loss. And it cast an involuntary, often subconscious, standard by which I have compared every time and personality since.
This week, Joe Biden’s tentative expectation of eventual victory included appreciation for campaign workers and voters. He reminded America that political opponents are not the same as bitter enemies. He promised that, if he turned out to have been chosen, he would be President of all Americans.
In America, the vote is sacred. It’s how the people of this nation express their will. And it is the will of the voters — no one, not anything else — that chooses the president of the United States of America. So each ballot must be counted.
And he urged patience during that count. There was no demand for concession.
Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well. But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years.
Donald Trump’s speech made Nixon seem like a monument of grace.
If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.
The falsehoods remain a fact-checker’s nightmare.
Trump accused Democrats, and the media, and poll workers, and dishonest voters, of “trying to steal the election” and “trying to rig an election” by counting legitimate votes cast according to legitimate rules by legitimate voters.
He claimed ownership of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin because the first votes, the votes coming in from Republican areas, showed him ahead. In a democratic republic, counting is not stopped before all the votes are counted, just because the first votes favor one hopeful candidate.
He said that mail-in voting included “tremendous corruption and fraud” and that “It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided.” Well, he instructed his own voters not to trust the mail. What would anyone expect?
At the suggestion of his campaign, Republican legislators in Pennsylvania had told election workers they could not begin counting mailed votes until election day. In his speech, he insisted that the counting of those ballots should have been stopped because it was taking so long.
The falsehoods went on and on. It was a speech of bluster and threats.
As has been my reflexive habit since childhood, I measured both speeches by the standards of conduct six decades in the past, back when I was young and innocent.
Biden’s speech measured up to Kennedy just fine.
Trump was a reminder that sometimes rock bottom has a cellar.
And I thought of Kennedy’s private admission to his staff. Nixon did not possess the grace to concede in person. It was by telegram, read by a campaign staffer to a small gathering of reporters. It did not even include the traditional acknowledgement of a hard campaign or any gratitude toward volunteers.
Over the decades, what Kennedy said privately that day about Nixon eventually became public. Consider whether it better applies today than it did in November, 1960. Consider whether it better describes Donald Trump now than it did Richard Nixon then. As Kennedy put it:
He went out the way he came in — no class.