our kind of folks

 

Bobby Kennedy

[excerpts from Bobby Kennedy, by Chris Matthews - Simon & Schuster, 2017] -------------------------- Unknown to him, a pattern of resistance to Jack was beginning to emerge on two fronts.  Both were owing to the candidate's religion.  Sorensen had gone to the Minnesota delegation to plead for the backing of Congressman Eugene McCarthy.  "Forget it!" came his dismissive reply.  "All we have are farmers and Protestants."

        Then, there were the anti-Catholic politicians, who were now, on the second ballot, looking to stop the Kennedy momentum.  Oklahoma governor J. Howard Edmondson phrased his own feeling on the matter this way:  "He's not our kind of folks."

        ...The Kennedy campaign's attention now turned to Wisconsin.  The first to arrive there, Bobby made quick work of a reporter's open skepticism as to the possibility of a Roman Catholic being elected president of a largely Protestant country.  "Did they ask my brother Joe whether he was a Catholic  before he was shot down?"

        Still, he wasn't taking any chances.  His first act upon arrival in Milwaukee was a purely pragmatic one.  He moved their state headquarters away from the Catholic cathedral just across the street. ---------------------------

Ted Sorensen (speechwriter for JFK)

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