Blaming Kennedy is not supported by the absolute crushing Carter got by himself in the 1980 election, losing the electoral college 489/538 (4th biggest in history). This isn’t due to some unsuccessful Kennedy run. Reagan set the highest such win 4 years later with 525/538 electoral votes. Carter was quite unpopular with the public after such poor economic performance. 15% inflation is the worst in modern times; it would be impossible for any President to get re-elected under such national suffering.
I'm amused by the fact that everyone always blames the person who has been explicitly isolated from having any economic power, the president. The electorate just seems to bully the president in this regard.
The President has immense economic power, more than any other person in the US. One example is the ability to levy tariffs at a whim, make and break and alter trade treaties, appoint various economic players such as fed reserve members, and a host of other actions.
What single person do you think has greater power?
Given current history, the Feds I guess. President is powerful, but he can't just dig an economy out of recession (which seems to be the times when we have huge swings, for the sake of change). Even if he could, the methods are so unpopular that you basically doom your campaign. Only a lame duck could afford that.
That's a part of why the Feds levy a lot of independence. In this case, what the people want isn't always the best for them.
The Feds are not one person, and they cannot affect as much as the President. The main board is 12 members, with several others rotating in and out, and by statute they have congressional oversight. The members also have to answer to the regional banks their section oversees, so there is significant checks and balances.
Several of the powers I listed above for the President are absolute (well, up to impeachment, but I doubt any President would be impeached for trade war tanking of the economy.). There are many more powers a President can invoke, such as nationalizing industries, seizing production, halting trade, all under various War Powers Acts, which the President alone can invoke. Of course after the fact Congress has some oversight, but not much.
Last Trump term he declared all sorts of things were national security issues then applied tariffs, despite those powers never being used as ham handedly as he did. I suspect we’ll see more of these uses soon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_presidentia...
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-inflation