Presidency of John F. Kennedy in the context of "Great Society"

The conservative coalition, founded in 1937, was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. In addition to Roosevelt, the conservative coalition dominated Congress for four presidencies, blocking legislation proposed by Roosevelt and his successors. By 1937, the conservatives were the largest faction in the Republican Party which had opposed the New Deal in some form since 1933. Despite Roosevelt being a Democrat himself, his party did not universally support the New Deal agenda in Congress. Democrats who opposed Roosevelt's policies tended to hold conservative views, and allied with conservative Republicans. These Democrats were mostly located in the South. According to James T. Patterson: "By and large the congressional conservatives agreed in opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy, in denouncing deficit spending, in criticizing industrial labor unions, and in excoriating most welfare programs. They sought to 'conserve' an America which they believed to have existed before 1933."

The coalition dominated Congress from 1939 to 1963, when former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency and broke its influence. Johnson took advantage of weakened conservative opposition, and Congress passed many progressive economic and social reforms in his presidency. The conservative coalition, which controlled key congressional committees and made up a majority of both houses of Congress during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, had prevented the implementation of progressive reforms since the late 1930s. It remained a declining political force until it disappeared in the mid-1990s when few conservative Democrats remained in Congress.

The Fair Deal was a set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in 1945 and in his January 1949 State of the Union Address. More generally, the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with a conservative coalition controlling Congress during most of Truman's presidency, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable Republican Party support. As Richard Neustadt concludes, the most important proposals were aid to education, national health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. They were all debated at length, then voted down. Nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed that liberals could claim some success.

The Korean War made military spending the nation's priority and killed almost the entire Fair Deal, but did encourage the pursuit of economic growth. Some of the Fair Deal's progressive policies were enacted piecemeal by legislation during Truman's time in office, and further enactments continued under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, culminating in the sweeping tide of progressive legislation under Lyndon Johnson's Great Society agenda.

The 1980 presidential campaign of Ted Kennedy, United States Senator from Massachusetts, was formally launched on November 7, 1979, as Senator Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother, announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency of the United States in the 1980 presidential election against incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

Kennedy benefited from President Carter's historically low approval ratings, reminiscing of his brothers' presidency and presidential campaigns, and support from the liberal faction of the Democratic Party. However, disorganization and ineffective campaigning allowed Carter to bridge the 2-to-1 polling gap following a rise in his approval rating due to his initial handling of the Iran hostage crisis.