10/15/2008

The way things were...
A victim of TV's unblinking eye
By Tom Range, Sr.

As Election Day 2008 approaches and the campaigning intensifies, both political parties have been reviewing past campaigns, seeking out aspects that might be advantageous when applied to their respective candidate. A favored reminiscence is review of the first televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960, which pitted Richard M. Nixon against John F. Kennedy.  The confrontation was held in a TV studio in Chicago. 

Kennedy spent much of the previous week relaxing in California.  He was tanned and appeared glowing with good health.  In contrast to the tanned senator from Massachusetts, his opponent Nixon, the incumbent vice president, by all accounts arrived in terrible shape.  He had been laid up earlier in the campaign with an infected knee and had not completely recovered.  He shunned the advice of his campaign aides to pace himself and ease up on his schedule to prepare for the debate.

Nixon, ill and exhausted arrived in Chicago the day before the scheduled debate and insisted upon a motorcade, stopping for rallies along the way to his hotel.  On the morning of the contest he insisted upon appearing in front of a labor union rally.  He arrived at the TV studio appearing gray and ashen.  As a result of his knee infection Nixon had lost weight and  his shirt hung loosely around his neck, like that of a dying man as one observer remarked.  Moreover, he suffered from a heavy beard and sported a "five o'clock shadow." He used a cosmetic application called "Shavestick," which because of his profuse sweating under the television studio lights ran down his cheeks.  Kennedy appeared poised and at ease, but his opponent seemed to dissolve in sweat before the penetrating, unblinking eye of the TV camera.  It is quite plausible this single TV appearance cost Nixon the election.

It is puzzling why Nixon, the most astute of politicians did not have the foresight to adequately prepare himself for this TV appearance beamed to millions of voters throughout the country.  Some of his apologists reflected upon the success of his "Checkers" speech of September 1952, when Nixon was in danger of being dropped as the vice presidential candidate in Dwight Eisenhower's presidential election bid because of a "slush fund" of $16,000.  The fund, established by rich California businessmen was meant to defray his personal expenses as he, while as the vice presidential candidate toured the country in his electioneering bid.

Nixon's advisors set up a network TV address following the hugely popular Milton Berle show, in which the candidate could explain and defend the existence of the fund.  They initially attempted to have the speech follow "I Love Lucy."  "Checkers" referred to the Nixon family's pet dog, a black and white spotted cocker spaniel donated by an admirer.  Nixon explained to his audience that his family was of modest means and that his wife Pat "doesn't have a mink coat.  But she does have a perfectly respectable, Republican cloth coat."  As regards the dog, "And you know the kids, like all kids, love that dog and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're going to keep it."  TV worked well for the vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1952.  However, eight years later his TV appearance in the debate likely contributed significantly to his defeat by Kennedy.