The Development of Baby's Political Rebellion -- Part 1

This series of articles follows up the series Baby Houseman's Thinking About Social Justice -- Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

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Baby Houseman was 17 years old during the Dirty Dancing story, which takes place in 1963, so she was born in about 1946.

I imagine that her father hoped that his second and last child would be a boy. However, the second child too turned out to be a girl. She was nicknamed "Baby", because her parents decided that she always would be the baby of the family. Her parents decided to have only two children.

Although the father, Jake, was disappointed by his lack of a son, he made the best of his situation. He subtly encouraged Baby to follow in his own footsteps. He subtly encouraged her ambitions to succeed in a professional career. He hoped she might eventually become a doctor like himself.

Baby reciprocated her father's special attention and became a "daddy's girl". She readily adopted his attitudes and opinions -- in particular about politics.

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Like the overwhelming majority of doctors, Jake opposed government interference in the medical business. President Harry Truman -- whose presidency lasted from 1945 into 1953 -- had tried to establish national health insurance, but his attempts were defeated largely by the political opposition of the American Medical Association (AMA).

President Dwight Eisenhower -- whose presidency lasted from 1953 into 1960 -- half-heartedly tried to establish a much more modest program of government support for private medical insurance. His efforts likewise were defeated by the AMA's political opposition. Eisenhower soon gave up on this issue.

Baby Houseman went through elementary school during the Eisenhower presidency. When Eisenhower became President, Baby was about seven years old. When Eisenhower's presidency ended, Baby was about 14 years old.

President Eisenhower helped to make golf a popular sport. Perhaps he inspired the Houseman family to become avid golfers.

When Baby heard her parents and their relatives and friends discussing politics, she surely heard positive talk about President Eisenhower. The Houseman family was prospering. As a medical doctor, the father enjoyed secure employment and a high income.

As a "daddy's girl", Baby paid special attention to her father's political talk. Dr. Houseman strongly advocated the free-enterprise economic system and opposed the international threat posed by the Communist Bloc.

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The first time that Baby paid attention to a Presidential election was in 1960, when she was about 14 years old. During the primary elections, she heard her father and his friends discussing whether the Republican Party should nominate Vice President Richard Nixon or New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as the Republican Party's presidential candidate.

Rockefeller was supported by the Republican Party's liberals. I assume that Jake Houseman had voted for Rockefeller in 1958 to become New York's Governor and would vote for him again in 1960 to become the Republican Party's candidate in that year's presidential election.

Of course, Baby too wanted her Governor Rockefeller to become the Republican Party's candidate. She did not understand the political differences between Rockefeller and Nixon, but her father's preference modeled her own preference.

Nixon soon took a commanding lead in the Republican primary elections. Rockefeller did not campaign actively, but his supporters advocated that Nixon select Rockefeller as the Republican Party's vice-presidential candidate. However, at the Republican Party's convention at the end of July 1960, Nixon chose instead Henry Cabot Lodge as the vice-presidential candidate.

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Thus at the end of July 1960 Baby shifted her focus from the Republican primary-elections race to the general election race between Nixon and the Democratic Party's candidate John Kennedy.

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This series will continue in Part 2.