On September 12, 1960, just as the general election campaign for president was heating up, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy addressed the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Before an audience of Protestant ministers, the senator—who had authored the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Profiles in Courage" four years earlier—displayed his own brand of political courage in confronting an issue that had dogged him through the Democratic primary and remained, to some voters, a liability: his Catholicism. "Contrary to common newspaper usage," he said, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be Catholic."
Kennedy's speech set a precedent in modern presidential politics: that sometimes, in the face of stiff political headwinds, a candidate must confront their perceived electoral vulnerability head-on and then leave it to the voters to decide.
