Senator, You're No Jack Kennedy - Legacy

Legacy

Four years later at the 1992 Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan answered claims by Bill Clinton's campaign, while poking fun at his own age, by saying, "This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well, let me tell you something. I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And governor, you're no Thomas Jefferson."

References to and parodies of the famous quotation have often appeared in popular culture. On an episode of Saturday Night Live, several candidates for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States were debating each other at a time when President George H. W. Bush was enjoying enormous popularity in the polls. All of the candidates tried to make the other ones look good since no one wanted to face Bush in the election. At one point, Bentsen, played by host Kiefer Sutherland, remarked, "I knew Jack Kennedy, I worked with Jack Kennedy. I am no Jack Kennedy." Also in the Disney-produced film "George of the Jungle", during the wedding, Ursula's mother - pouting over multiple appearances of gorillas - complained to her husband, "Arthur, I wish you could do something about these monkeys. I feel like Jane Goodall". One Gorilla replied back, "Madam, I knew Jane Goodall, and you are no Jane Goodall".

In 2008, Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis paraphrased the quotation in reference to a number of Presidential candidates invoking her father's name during the 2008 United States Presidential campaign, "Where is Lloyd Bentsen when you need him? 'I knew Ronald Reagan... senator (or governor), you're no Ronald Reagan.'"

In October 2012, at the UK Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Foreign Secretary William Hague made a response to a speech that Labour leader Ed Miliband had given at his own party conference in the previous week, in which Miliband compared his party with Benjamin Disraeli's One Nation Conservatism ideology. Hague said, "To borrow a turn of phrase, we were led by Disraeli, our predecessors knew Disraeli, Disraeli was a Conservative through and through, and, Ed Miliband, you are no Disraeli."

At the 2012 US vice presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden made a similar statement that seemed to allude to Bentsen's quote. It was made in reaction to Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's citation of a policy taken by President Kennedy. Biden quipped at Ryan, "Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy?"