While Kennedy's election took place before I was born, his religion was a big issue, and a significant segment of the voting public feared that a Kennedy presidency would be strongly influenced by the Vatican.

The religion issue came to a head in primary in West Virginia, the state with the highest percentage of Protestants. Kennedy needed a victory there to solidify the nomination and avoid throwing the nomination into the hands of the party bosses. A few weeks before the primary, Humphrey took a 20 point lead, and it was determined that Kennedy's drop in popularity stemmed from the growing realization he was Roman Catholic. He took the issue head on, and invested a lot of time and money explaining his politics and religion. He said something to the effect of "I refuse to believe that I was disqualified from ever being president on the day I was baptized. He won over 60% of the WV vote and, of course, won the primary.

It seems odd to think of the ordeal over the religion issue. Since then, other Catholics have run for office with little, if anything, paid to their beliefs. Catholic candidates have included liberals like Jerry Brown and John Kerry and conservatives like Pat Buchanan and Rudy Giuliani.

Perhaps, so too we are fast approaching the day where gender and race will be of little importance.