Like John Kennedy in 1960, Obama combines youth, vigor, and good looks with the promise of political change. Like Kennedy, he grew up in unusual circumstances that distance him from ordinary American life.
When Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 as her father's rightful heir, she laid upon him the mantle of Camelot and the enduring mystique of John F. Kennedy, who, according to polls, continues to be America's most beloved president.
Public image is extremely important in American society and I observed personally that the Presidency of John F. Kennedy did much in the public mind for Harvard. Harvard was an excellent school before Kennedy, but Kennedy embodied a new vision for the United States: a leader who caught the world's imagination and that reflected on his alma mater, Harvard.
By every measure, John Kennedy's sex life was compulsive and reckless. At one level, it had clear public consequences. Knowledge of Kennedy's behavior gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover absolute job security, as well as the potential power to derail Kennedy's re-election had he survived assassination.
The John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics was originally intended to bring scholars and politicians into closer contact, on the assumption that other office-holders can use academics as profitably as Kennedy did during his political career.
A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, or Al Gore looks - no, acts - like he either came out of a hairstylist's salon or got off a Gulfstream.
Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.
When I was a West Virginia lad of 17, I met a Massachusetts lad of 42 by the name of John F. Kennedy. At the time, I was in a bright orange suit that I had just purchased to wear to the 1960 National Science Fair, where I hoped my home-built rockets would win a medal. Kennedy was in West Virginia trying to win the state's presidential primary.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy rode a superior televised debate performance to victory over Richard Nixon.
The Kennedy assassination is one of the ghostliest parts of our history. The Kennedy family - that's our royalty. It's fascinating and tragic and just strikes to the heart of our country. Here's the youngest president ever, full of hope and promise, and he made government service seem like it was dignified.
Growing up I used to ... one of my heroes growing up was President John F. Kennedy. And I actually have a memory box from when I was a little where I saved articles about President Kennedy. He was a real hero.
A lot of people have done things over the years and made fun of people in one way or another. When I was a kid, Vaughn Meader used to do John F. Kennedy. I don't know if that makes John F. Kennedy less credible. He would do the voice, he'd have some silly situations or whatever. I don't know if it made him less presidential because of it.
Kennedy had been assassinated a month or so before. So we walked to the grave of John Kennedy and ended our walking symbolically at the Arlington National Cemetery.
Declassified papers report that John Kennedy was taking eight different medications a day. He was so wasted, his Secret Service code name was Ted Kennedy.
[ John F.Kennedy's friend] Chuck Spalding at the wedding said Jack was two guys: the groom and somebody else observing from a distance. ... It must have been maddening to be married to a guy like that, but you could at the same time argue that characteristic kept the world from being blown up.
What TV was to John Kennedy, Facebook is to Obama.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, President Kennedy's sister, endorsed Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he's not a womanizer. Of course by Kennedy standards that means he never drove one off a bridge.