Nixon Kennedy Debate

In a response to the question of experience Kennedy responds: "The question really is which candidate and which party can meet the problems that the United States is going to face in the 60's."

Kennedy's attempt to brush aside his inexperience and label himself and his party as the choice of a new decade reflects both his image as youthful change and the great social shifting that occurs within the left in the 60's. He places Nixon within the camp of a competent yet outdated administration of Eisenhower while promising a new and in touch presidency. Without knowing, Kennedy links, as many people then and today see it, the Democratic party with the radicalization that occurs in the left of the party. The social turmoil embodied in the civil right movement, the peace movement, hippies, drug culture and the like were all connected with Kennedy as an embodiment of youth, (the group most associated with the radical left) the "new generation of Americans", and the expansion of the social state under the Democrats.