I finished my first book of the year on January 1. It was Wisconsin for Kennedy: The Primary That Launched a President and Changed the Course of History. It was written by UW-Eau Claire professor B.J. Hollars. What this book made me realize is how much we have changed as a nation in the last almost 65 years.

The things that Kennedy did while campaigning in Wisconsin back in early 1960 would never happen today. The primary system wasn’t as firmly embedded in how we elect a president as it is today. So Kennedy made a conscious decision to enter the Wisconsin primary. He put together a team in Wisconsin of people who knew the electorate in the state, many whose names I did not know, but some whose names I did, like Patrick Lucey, who eventually went on to serve Wisconsin as governor.

But what I found most interesting was the places that the campaign visited, towns like Cadott, Cornell, Ladysmith and Phillips. In today’s big money campaigns, we would never see a presidential candidate visit little towns like this in our area. We would never see them in Owen or Withee.

John F. Kennedy, sometimes with a brother in tow, stood outside of factories, like Uniroyal in Eau Claire, shaking hands with the workers as they changed shifts. Again, something I don’t think we would see happen today. Sometimes he just stopped in at a small town diner to chat with the locals. When candidates in the most recent presidential election visited Wisconsin, mostly they visited the bigger cities like Madison and Milwaukee. They either appeared at an airport or a venue that can be secured. They are surrounded by Secret Service and police. It is no longer a time where a candidate does that kind of one on one to ask people to vote for them as Kennedy did.

But just imagine what it would be like to go back to a less contentious time, a safer time. Think of the millions of dollars that wouldn’t be spent on campaigns if candidates came directly to the people, if they just sat down for a chat, or shook your hand as you were leaving your shift at work and asked for your vote.

Kennedy basically campaigned for three months in Wisconsin, through the worst months of a Wisconsin winter, which was a bit of an eye opener for both him and his brothers, Bobby and Ted. There was no announcement two years ahead of time that he was running for president. There was no bombardment of TV ads for months and months. And Kennedy was campaigning against Hubert Humphrey, who was from neighboring Minnesota and fairly well-known in parts of the state, which Kennedy was not. He also didn’t have a lot in common with people from Wisconsin, but he won voters over with a handshake and a smile.

He lost the state to Richard Nixon in the fall election, but beat Humphrey in the April primary. He won the primary by simply being present, by meeting the people where they were at. There are lessons to learned from this.

It would be nice to go back to simpler times, but that unfortunately isn’t the world we live in today.