Who is my leader anyway !!!

Well we will be postings on those persons whom we consider as our leaders.The first post is a secret and if you are ready to read further then you will know who the person we are talking about.

Heres a quote from that person, So my fellow Americans, ask not what the country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. These are the words by a person who is the first president of USA to be born in 20th century and the youngest elected to office at the age of 43. He is the first and the only Catholic and the first Irish American president of USA. Well he is also the only US president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his administration include the Bay of pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the building of the Berlin wall, the African American civil rights movement and the early stages of the Vietnam war. If you closely look at him then you will know that this person is as famous as  Shahrukh Khan or Tom Cruise. Yes you heard it correctly. He is the Shahrukh Khan of American politics. People used to call him the celebrity president.If you have seen the movie Forrest Gump, Then you definitely know about whom i am talking about. As Shahrukh Khan is known from his initials SRK, this person whom i consider as my leader is known from his initials JFK. Oliver Stone made a movie on him in 1991. Well this person is non other than John Fitzgerald Kennedy or Jack Kennedy,was born on May 29, 1917. He was the 35th president of United States of America serving from 1961 until his assassination in November 22, 1963.

After Kennedy s military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo boat 109 during world war II in the South Pacific, his aspirations turned political. With the encouragement and grooming of his father Joseph P. Kennedy JFK represented the Massachusetts 11th Congressional district in the House of the Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat and served in the US senate from 1953 until 1960. 

Kennedy defeated the then vice president and the Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election one of the most closest in the American history. Well Mr. Nixon lost the election by 120,000 votes, approximately 0.2 % of all the votes.

Well now talk about his leadership. He is one of those politicians who can be probably most closely identified with the term leader. You dont have to look far for the evidence of the imprint Kennedy left on American life and politics. From the day of his death, virtually every president and presidential candidate, since has to varying degrees sought to portray himself as the heir to the Kennedy legacy. Lyndon Johnson, who was the vice president during Kennedy s tenure and the 36th president of USA was obsessed with living in Kennedy s shadow. Richard Nixon was immensely jealous of the man, he also thought of as his friend. Jimi Carter reveled in being described by Time Magazine as Kennedisque during his 1976 campaign. Ronald Reagan invoked kennedys  tough  stance toward the Soviet Union and his tax cutting economic strategy to buttress his own efforts in these realms. A sixteen year old Bill Clinton famously was photographed- with a beatific look on his face- shaking Kennedy's hand in rose garden.

Perhaps the politicians sense something  the political science professors unable to do so as they tended not to rate Kennedy's presidency very highly. Butt even four decades after his death, JFK remains extraordinarily popular. An ABC news poll taken on presidents day weekend in 2003 listed JFK as the 2nd greatest president of all time.Although recentness and nostalgia no doubt play a major role in such results, the fact is that at the time of his death, Kennedy had the highest average approval rating of  any president ever measured by the Gallup polling organization. It was 70% Even Barrack Obama  had a highest of 66% approval rating. and in October 2009 it become 39%. 

Kennedy gave the Americans the look of the modern presidency. If Franklin D. Roosevelt created the imperial presidency, it was Kennedy who gave it its royal trappings. When you think of the American president what comes to your mind, Barrack Obama, Washington DC, White house, Sarah Palin ( no not in hundred years), Bobby Jindal ( a big thumbs up for 2012 presidential election). Well you are missing one more important thing. Its Air force One.  If you have seen Harrison Fords movie Air force One, then you definitely know what is the importance of that presidential aircraft. Before Kennedy it was not there. JFK took the boxy, functional looking presidential aircraft and hired a top industrial designer and repainted it and christened the result Air Force One, to descend majestically from the skies as the very symbol of the presidential power. No longer would American presidents greet their foreign visitors prosaically at the airport, instead the visitors would be whisked to the white house for a grand welcoming ceremony on the south lawn.

Kennedy had other notable leadership accomplishments to his credit.

1. He made his own rules

When he ran for Congress in 1946 without having held any previous office, he just built his own organization a practice he would retain throughout his career. Today virtually all ambitious politicians rely on their own organizations rather than the party's organization to win elections.

2. He started early

He began running for president in 1958 and declared his candidacy in 1960, both of which were considered absurdly early at the time. But now the early start is the standard operating procedure.

3. He mastered TV

The political debate form had all but died by the early 1950s. But Kennedy thought that if he could hold his own in a televised debate it would help him. His theory proved correct against both Lodge and Nixon. Today entire cable television networks in USA are devoted to nothing else but political debates.

4. He made friends of the press corps

 Kennedy was the first president to answer questions from journalists on live television. (‘‘The dumbest idea since the hula hoop,’’ groused New York Times columnist James Reston at the time.) The live presidential press conference, of course, is now an institution in itself.

His greatest speeches

1.This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds.It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

2.Today we are committed to a world wide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free .

3. This is one country. It has become one country because all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.
References: Wikipedia and the book (leadership and John F. Kennedy)