Last night I had the opportunity to spend some needed quiet time, during all the madness of the convention, with Ted Sorenson (watch for the video of my time with Ted to show up in my Flixwagon button).

If you don’t know who Ted Sorenson is, he was JFK’s speechwriter but he was also one of his closest friends who traveled with him to every 50 state when JFK was still 39 and when he was still deciding if he would run for president.

The legend around Ted is that he is the one that coined the famous phrase “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Ted is too humble and leads with a quiet center to ever take credit for that historic line.

Ted also happens to be a Nebraskan native.

Ted explained that JFK was mocked by older opponents for his age.  They called his campaign a “children’s crusade.”  Folks were always criticizing JFK and his staff for not having experience, for focusing too much on hope and optimism.

Sound familiar?

Ted said they simply ignored all of the mocking since they knew they were on the right path.  Ted also described what their youth voting strategy looked like.

He really emphasized that they did not just focus on college campuses.  Ted explained that going after the blue collar workers and young families along with Latino and black voters was very important to JFK and the young staff.   Kennedy Clubs were formed all over the nation and helped elect JFK.

Ted said JFK would not have won without the youth vote.  

Sound familiar?