polite and gentlemanly lads.
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6
RFK Announces Senate Candidacy
Aug. 25, 1964 - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy announced today that he was a candidate for the Senate and said that President Johnson would come to New York to help in his campaign.
Kennedy, entering elective politics for the first time, is assured of the nomination at the Democratic New York State Convention on Sept. 1. His principal opponent in the November election will be Senator Kenneth Keating, a Republican.
With his wife, Ethel, on his left and Mayor Robert Wagner on his right, Kennedy made his announcement on the lawn of Gracie Mansion, the Mayor’s official residence facing the East River.
The Attorney General met squarely the charges of his opponents in the Democratic party that he is a “carpetbagger” who is interested in the Senate seat only because he needs a new political base.
“There may be some who believe that where a candidate voted in the past is more important than his capacity to serve the state,” Kennedy said. “I cannot in fairness ask them to vote for me.”
After recalling that his parents had maintained a New York apartment since 1926, Kennedy added: “I do not base my candidacy on these considerations. I base it on the belief that New York is not separate from the nation in the year 1964. I base it on the conviction that my experience and my record equip me to understand New York’s problems and to do something about them.”
Kennedy said he had decided to run because he thought the country was facing “a fundamental political choice.”
“All that President Kennedy stood for and all that President Johnson is trying to accomplish, all the progress that has been made, is threatened by a new and dangerous Republican assault,” the Attorney General said.
“No one associated with President Kennedy and with President Johnson — no one committed to participating in public life — can sit on the sidelines with so much at stake.”
After he had finished, Kennedy remained on the podium for 20 minutes answering questions. Mrs. Kennedy, who is expecting a ninth child in December, remained at his side.
Asked if this was the first time he had ever run for public office, the Attorney General replied: “Yes, but I’ve had a couple of relatives who did.”
Short of running for office, the 38-year-old Attorney General has crammed into a dozen years since his graduation from law school political experience that many party leaders have taken a lifetime to accumulate.
At 26, he ran his brother’s campaign for the Senate. At 30, he almost won for him the Vice-Presidential nomination. At 34, he ran the Presidential campaign and became Attorney General. He was the youngest man to fill that office since 1814.
During the two years and almost 11 months his brother served in the White House, Robert Kennedy was his closest adviser. The question to be settled this fall is whether this wide experience can be converted into electoral appeal.
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