ABSTRACT
John Kennedy's rise to power taught a strong lesson to contenders who would follow him in the race for the Presidency, to Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon as well as to George McGovern and Jimmy Carter: start early. Nixon and Goldwater spent years dashing around the creamed-peas-and-chicken circuit, building fame and obligations. McGovern stalked into New Hampshire virtually unnoticed by the press; despite more than a year of active campaigning, his poll standing made him dismissable, confirming Joseph Alsop's view of him a year previous as an "amiable and virtuous shallow-pate". All he had going for him was the war issue and some enthusiastic canvassers. The real story had to be about Muskie, but he held an apparently overwhelming advantage. In October, George McGovern spoke to the students of Wheaton College, a Methodist school in Illinois: The President can be the great moral leader of the nation.
