Wisconsin for Kennedy
The Primary That Launched a President and Changed the Course
of History
BJ Hollars
Wisconsin Historical Society Press
March, 2024, 256 pp
Paper: $24.95
Ebook: $11.99
About the Book
The behind-the-scenes story of JFK’s 1960 Wisconsin primary
campaign
When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he did something no candidate
had done before: he leveraged the power of state primaries to win his party’s
nomination. Kennedy’s first battleground state? Wisconsin—a state that would
prove more arduous, more exhausting, and more crucial to winning the presidency
than any other.
Wisconsin for Kennedy brings to life the stories behind JFK’s
history-making 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign, and how Kennedy’s team managed
to outmaneuver his politically seasoned opponent, Hubert Humphrey. From Jackie
Kennedy commandeering a supermarket loudspeaker in Kenosha, to the Wisconsin
forklift driver who planned President Kennedy’s final trip to Dallas, this
captivating book places readers at the heart of the action.
Author B.J. Hollars chronicles JFK’s nail-biting Wisconsin win by drawing on
rarely cited oral histories from the eclectic team of people who worked
together to make it happen: a cranberry farmer, a union leader, a mayor, an
architect, and others. Wisconsin for Kennedy explores how Wisconsin
helped propel JFK all the way to the White House in a riveting historical
account that reads like a work of rollicking, page-turning fiction.
My Review
Using detailed records, interviews, a little creativity, and
lots of images, BJ Hollars crafts a descriptive and unique rise to office
through the eyes of several players for President John F. Kennedy. The author carefully
sets the stage for Kennedy’s dizzying primary campaign in Wisconsin decades
before the campaign by introducing his important future players via Democratic
Convention dates and highlight events leading up to the 1960 convention:
Philleo Nash, special assistant to President Truman, later chair of the WDNC,
and lieutenant governor; future governor Pat Lucey, Ivan Nestingan, mayor of Madison,
William Proxmire’s aide, Jerry Bruno, and Milwaukee’s Vel Phillips, recently
elected to the Common Council. Each of these people were introduced to Kennedy prior
to 1960, whether to help on another campaign, or simply because of the office
held, and each became an important influence in Kennedy’s campaign for the
White House.
Hollars’ style of setting down historical facts with
storytelling charm create an easy-flowing tale of political intrigue around the
JFK era, from McCarthyism, marital mishaps, and civil unrest in all its ugliest
forms, to the magnetism that Jack Kennedy exuded wherever he went, will
resonate with readers of popular history. The book is filled with images, casual
conversation from the records, and even little-known tidbits about Jackie
Kennedy was reading while reluctantly on the campaign trail, and the drama of her
early miscarriages.
It's a story for the Wisconsinites who came alongside
Kennedy, Hollars says in his introductory note, where he also acknowledges
valuable contributions made by Wisconsin women; roles that were not as well
documented. I’m glad he was able to include a great deal of material about Vel
Phillips. The book doesn’t end with the Wisconsin primary. Told in three parts,
the last part is the aftermath of the election, the lessons learned from dealing
with people across the nation, convincing them to support Kennedy’s election.
There is a story of going for the personal touch in West Virginia with Jerry
Bruno as one of the advance scouts where the candidate got a real taste of
poverty. The key players attended the inauguration in January of 1961, where
stories about Robert Frost bring the story to relatable level. Hollars finishes
the work with another the story of the president’s reasons and route that final
fatal day in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. Jerry Bruno remained one of the president’s
advance scouts, and had been heavily involved in setting up the stops and the
parade route. He was bothered by the outcome ever afterward.
Included is a lengthy bibliography, notes, and index. The
book is a great addition to Wisconsin lore.
About the Author
B.J.
Hollars is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire and the founder and director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. His
books include Year of Plenty: A Family’s Season of Grief; Go West
Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail; The
Road South: Personal Stories of the Freedom Riders; and Hope Is the
Thing: Wisconsinites on Perseverance in a Pandemic. Hollars is the
recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Nonfiction, the Anne B. and
James B. McMillan Prize, and the Council of Wisconsin Writers' Blei/Derleth
Nonfiction Book Award. His work has been featured in the Washington Post and
on NPR.