"In 1960 the Democratic candidate was the rich witty graceful charming and of course boyishly handsome Massachusetts senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who gained voter recognition by having his face on millions of souvenir plates and being married to the lovely and internationally admired Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Kennedy's major political drawback was that the nation had never elected a Roman Catholic; on the other hand, the nation had never elected a total dweeb, either, and the Republicans had for some reason nominated "Dick" Nixon. So it was a very close race. The turning point was a series of nationally televised debates, in which Kennedy, who looked tanned and relaxed, seemed to have an advantage over Nixon, who looked as though he had been coached by ferrets. Kennedy held a slight lead going into the bonus round, where he chose Category Three (Graceful Handsome Boyish Wittiness) and won the matching luggage plus Texas plus Illinois, thus guaranteeing his victory in the November election. This was widely believed to be the end of Nixon's career."
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Presidents of the United StatesPoliticians from CaliforniaQuakersUnited States presidential candidates, 1972United States presidential candidates, 1968
Original Language: English
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Sources
Dave Barry, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 144-145
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
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Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (9 January 1913 – 22 April 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign the office. Nixon had previously served as a Republican U.S. representative and senator from California from 1947 to 1952 and as the 36th vice president of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
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