Who Hated Domestic Policy More: John Kennedy or Richard Nixon?

jfk v nixonIn an earlier post, I wrote about JFK’s disdain for domestic politics, and how such disdain doomed his lackluster efforts to pass Medicare legislation.  As it turns out, Richard Nixon, the man he defeated in the 1962 Presidential Election, held similar disdain for domestic  affairs when he was President of the United States, and not coincidentally also failed in his attempt to reform the U.S. healthcare system.  His disdain is tersely captured in a note he sent to his domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, while in the White House:

“I want you to concentrate on selling domestic programs and answering attacks on them, rather than developing those programs…Substance in the case of foreign policy is infinitely more important substance is in the case of domestic policy.”

In politics, you can’t get what you don’t fight for.
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