Oct. 18, 1964 - Senator Kenneth Keating (R-N.Y.) (pictured) accused Robert F. Kennedy today of waging an “arrogant” and “highly unprincipled” campaign.
Denouncing his Democratic opponent in terms far more scathing than any has used since he was renominated, the Senator described Kennedy as “temperamentally unfit to be a candidate for Senator from New York.”
Keating said that the former Attorney General had conducted “a highly unprincipled campaign — the most superficial, the most uninformed, and in some ways the most arrogant campaign New York State has ever witnessed.”
He called Kennedy “a man with grandiose ambitions seeking to tarnish my record with outrageous distortions,” “a self-seeking outsider,” and “a man seeking to confuse and mislead the people of my native state.”
Keating’s remarks were made at a New Yorkers for Keating rally at the Second City nightclub, 15 West Fourth Street. About 400 cheering, foot-stomping partisans packed the smoke-filled but brightly lighted room.
Keating’s comments elicited a statement from Kennedy’s headquarters that the charges were “reckless” and “beneath the dignity of the office he holds.”
Before Keating’s speech, other Republicans took turns assailing Kennedy. Senator Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) called him a “glamour puss.” John J. Gilhooley, a member of the Transit Authority, called him “a carbonated folk hero.”
In his speech, Keating said Kennedy had “waltzed around the state promising the fattest and juiciest handouts from the Federal Government that we have ever experienced.” This, the Senator asserted, was “just plain political bribery.”
“While distorting my record,” he said, “my opponent has let loose with unjustified cries of ‘foul’ and with other juvenile outbursts every time his own record has been questioned.”
After 15 minutes of this, a man at the back of the room shouted, “Give ‘em hell, Ken” — a paraphrase of the Democratic battle cry of 1948. Keating beamed.
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