Claims That Robert F. Kennedy Was A New Democrat
As a harbinger of modern liberalism and progressivism, Robert F. Kennedy has been described as the first "New Democrat". As former President Bill Clinton described in his book My Life:
"In the 1968 Indiana primary, Bobby Kennedy became the first New Democrat. He believed in civil rights for all and special privileges for none, in giving poor people a hand up rather than a handout: work was better than welfare. He understood in a visceral way that progressive politics requires the advocacy of both new policies and fundamental values, both far-reaching change and social stability. If he had become President, America's journey through the rest of the twentieth century would have been very different."
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“Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs 29:18.
President John F. Kennedy quoted this passage on the eve of his assassination in Dallas, Texas. Quoted in Theodore C. Sorenson, Kennedy, epilogue (1965)
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