Today is Thursday, September 26, the 270th day of the yr 2024. There are 96 days left within the yr.

Today in history:

On September 26, 1960, the very first debate between the presidential candidates took place when Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon faced off before a national television audience from Chicago.

Also on this date:

In 1777, British troops occupied Philadelphia through the American Revolution.

In 1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in because the sixteenth Chief Justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.

In 1990, the Motion Picture Association of America announced that it had introduced a brand new age rating called NC-17 to interchange the X rating.

In 1991, 4 men and 4 women began a two-year stay in a sealed structure called Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona; they left Biosphere 2 the identical day in 1993.

In 2000, demonstrations against a summit of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Prague led to clashes between hundreds of anti-globalization protesters and the police.

In 2005, Private First Class Lynndie England was found guilty by a military court at Fort Hood, Texas, on six of seven counts related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

In 2020, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a former law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Barrett was confirmed the next month.)

In 2022, NASA's Dart spacecraft rammed an asteroid at breakneck speed – an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day when a killer rock threatens Earth.

Today's birthdays:

• Country singer David Frizzell is 83.
• TV presenter Anne Robinson is 80.
• Singer Bryan Ferry is 79.
• The writer Jane Smiley is 75.
• Singer and guitarist Cesar Rosas (Los Lobos) is 70.
• Actress Linda Hamilton is 68.
• Actress Melissa Sue Anderson is 62.
• Actor Jim Caviezel (kuh-VEE'-zuhl) is 56.
• Singer Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men) is 52.
• Hockey Hall of Famers Daniel and Henrik Sedin are 44.
• Tennis player Serena Williams is 43.
• Singer and actress Christina Milian (MIHL'-ee-ahn) is 43.
• Actress Zoe Perry is 41.

Gerald Ford knew that Richard Nixon could possibly be prosecuted for the crimes he committed as President. That was simply a fact when President Ford told his predecessor “a complete, free and absolute pardon” 50 years ago this week.

Former presidents didn’t enjoy comprehensive immunity from criminal prosecution until July 1, 2024, when six members of the Supreme Court created this privilege in Trump against the United States.

In 1974, when Nixon's resignation would likely result in prosecution for his role in lots of the Watergate crimes, Republicans within the White House and Congress were based on the Constitution. Article II, Section 4 established that former presidents were criminally liable but not immune. Even after impeachment, conviction, and removal from office, “the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable, and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law.”

Ford faced this fact in his Declaration of pardon: “Because of certain acts or omissions prior to his resignation from the office of President, Richard Nixon is in danger of being impeached and tried for crimes against the United States.”

Nixon had a right to a good trial, Ford said. The Constitution guarantees this to everyone. But Ford expressed doubts about whether America would find a way to present Nixon a good trial until months or perhaps years had passed. That was his reasoning for pardoning Nixon.

For most Americans, it wasn't adequate.

From anger to respect

According to a poll, only 26 percent of Americans supported the pardon, while 59 percent were against it.

Reporters interviewed outraged residents.

“What about the others in his administration who are on trial?” asked John Dawdy, a Vietnam veteran and law student. After all, Nixon’s co-conspirators, including a former Attorney General And former White House Chief of Staffreceived fair trials.

Joseph Hickel, a refugee from Czechoslovakia, saw “the danger of future crimes” by presidents if Nixon's crimes went unpunished. Ann Robinson of Cerritos, California, said: “This pardon makes the incumbent seem like a king.”

Opinions modified as Watergate faded into oblivion, and in 1986 A poll found that only 39% were against it for pardoning Nixon and 54% for it.

Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts and critic of the 1974 pardon, later concluded that Ford was right and gave him a Profile within the Courage Award in 2001 for taking an unpopular but conscientious stance.

During the Trump administration, when one other president was under impeachment and prosecution, public opinion concerning the Nixon pardon modified again. Americans were completely polarized: 38% in favor, 38% against.

In light of the Trump experience, some historians looked back and saw Nixon’s pardon in a brand new light: as harmful precedent Establishment of the President impunity.

No one is above the law

This 12 months, Americans must grapple with a brand new consequence of pardons. Because Ford's decision robbed the country of a precedent for prosecuting a former president, the Supreme Court's six Republican-appointed justices were capable of fill that void with what I call a radical revision the structure.

The majority of the court Ruling that presidents enjoy immunity from prosecution for his or her “official acts” would have forgiven most of Nixon’s Watergate crimes. Nixon used the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation; created a illegal, unconstitutional secret police unit; sicced the IRS on political opponents; commuted the sentence of former Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa of jury tampering and pension fund fraud in exchange for union support; and blackmailed campaign donors in return for presidency favors.

Under Trump against the United States, Nixon needn’t have frightened a couple of pardon. He could have declared all these crimes to be “official acts” that he had committed throughout the scope of his powers as president.

Ironically, the conservative justices of the Supreme Court, who consider themselves “originalists” and pride themselves on adhering to the literal wording of the Constitution and the unique intent of its framers, have provided an ideal example of the risks of allowing judges to rewrite the Constitution to suit their particular preferences.

The Watergate break-in occurred the identical 12 months that Joe Biden has entered national politics as a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware. Newly elected Senator Biden criticized the pardon a day after Ford issued it, saying: “It puts a man above the law.”

Biden couldn’t have known that fifty years later, in his final 12 months in national politics, the Supreme Court would authorize presidents to commit Nixon-style crimes – or worse – throughout the scope of their official authority and without fear of punishment.

As a part of his legacy, Biden has proposed Constitutional amendment to repair the damage done by Trump v. United States. Its name reflects the principle Biden invoked 50 years ago. It is named the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment.” It would strip presidents of immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as “official acts.” As a soon-to-be former president, Biden could have so much to lose by passing his own amendment.

This 12 months’s Republican candidate has often expressed Eagerness to prosecute Biden despite an absence of evidence of a criminal offense. In the case of Trump v. United States, Biden enjoys extensive immunity. According to the amendment “No one is above the law,” he would lose this privilege.

The amendment shouldn’t be only an example of Biden putting the country before himself, but in addition an indication of courage.

Today is Sunday, September eighth, the 252nd day of the yr 2024. There are 114 days left within the yr.

Today in history:

On September 8, 1974, one month after taking office, President Gerald R. Ford granted former President Richard Nixon a “full, free and absolute pardon” for all crimes committed during Nixon’s presidency.

Also on this date:

In 1504, Michelangelo's massive marble statue of David was presented to the general public in Florence, Italy.

In 1664, the Dutch ceded New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.

In 1900, Galveston, Texas, was hit by a hurricane that killed an estimated 8,000 people; it was still the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

In 1935, Senator Huey P. Long (Democrat of Louisiana) was shot within the Louisiana State Capitol.

In 1941, the 900-day siege of Leningrad by German forces began during World War II.

In 1951, 49 nations signed a peace treaty with Japan in San Francisco.

In 1964, public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, reopened after being closed for five years in an try and prevent court-ordered desegregation.

In 1986, the primary of 25 seasons of the “Oprah Winfrey Show” began airing on national television.

In 2016, California and federal regulators fined Wells Fargo a complete of $185 million, alleging that bank employees opened tens of millions of unauthorized accounts for his or her customers so as to meet aggressive sales targets.

In 2022, Queen Elizabeth II, who spent greater than seven a long time on the British throne, died on the age of 96; her 73-year-old son became King Charles III.

Today's birthdays:

• Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., is 86.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is 83.
• Former Defense Secretary James Mattis is 74.
• Civil rights activist Ruby Bridges is 70.
• The writer Terry Tempest Williams is 69.
• Maurice Cheeks, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, is 68.
• Actress Heather Thomas is 67.
• Singer Aimee Mann is 64.
• Actor Thomas Kretschmann is 62.
• Alternative country singer Neko (NEE'-koh) Case is 54.
• Television personality Brooke Burke is 53.
• Actor Martin Freeman is 53.
• Actor David Arquette is 53.
• Television and radio presenter Kennedy is 52.
• Actor Larenz Tate is 49.
• Singer-songwriter Pink is 45.
• Actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas is 43.
• Rapper Wiz Khalifa is 37.
• MLB pitcher Gerrit Cole is 34.
• Actor Gaten Matarazzo (TV: “Stranger Things”) is 22.

TJ Fallon began visiting the graves of U.S. presidents at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“I did it out of sheer boredom after being furloughed from my job,” said the New Jersey native.

Four years later, not only has he visited all 39 presidential graves no less than twice, but as of this week, his ten-year-old son Henry has also seen all of them.

On Monday, Henry of Brick, New Jersey, became perhaps the youngest person ever to perform the feat of paying his respects to each deceased president after he and his father disembarked from their flight to LAX to go to the libraries of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

Afterwards, he said that it had been “somehow” a way of accomplishment for him to have seen all of the presidential graves.

The Fallons have traveled across the country to go to presidential libraries and cemeteries, including spending Henry's spring break on a road trip through Kansas and Missouri to go to the graves of Eisenhower and Truman.

Henry's favorite president? Lincoln.

But like many ten-year-olds, Henry just isn’t an enormous history buff and seems to have virtually little interest in politics. He zoomed across the Nixon Library wearing an Aaron Judge baseball cap and spent more time practicing his batting swing than taking a look at the exhibits.

His favorite museum is the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, he said. And what he likes best about these road trips with Dad just isn’t visiting the presidential tombs, but stopping on the ballparks along the way in which — and sometimes off the beaten track. The Fallons also headed to Dodger Stadium and Oracle Park in San Francisco this week — in addition to Dinseyland.

“People always ask me why I visit the graves of presidents,” said TJ Fallon. “It's a strange hobby. But it humanizes all these great people. They were people with families. They were mortal.”

The hobby began with a random Google search in 2020 when Fallon asked if New Jersey had any presidents buried. In fact, Grover Cleveland is buried in Princeton. Although Cleveland never attended college, he fell in love with the realm after giving a speech on the university in 1896, made Princeton his home after his second term as president, and have become a trustee of the Ivy League university.

After visiting Cleveland's grave, Fallon launched a difficult Google search: “Has anyone visited all the presidential graves?”

Fallon said that based on his research, it looked like no less than one person had done this, and maybe others. He resolved to do it faster.

So he drove greater than 60,000 miles through 34 states to go to all of them in nine months. He also visited all 34 graves of Vice Presidents, 53 of the 56 graves of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and all 39 signers of the Constitution. He was introduced by his hometown newspaper and Jay Leno's show “You Bet Your Life”; he has 20,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel “Dead History” and 50,000 followers on Instagram.

Fallon says Nixon has the most effective obituary of any president: “The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.” Meanwhile, he believes Martin Van Buren has essentially the most inconspicuous gravesite, in a small cemetery in his hometown of Kinderhook, New York.

Fallon's fascination with presidential history may not have completely rubbed off on Henry, but no less than the 2 can at all times look back on this journey together.

“Seeing America with his father,” Henry said, “means a lot to him.”

Originally published: August 9, 2024 at 11:42 am

President Joe Biden is and reaffirmed its commitment to stay within the race for the presidency – despite the growing variety of calls from politicians and voters for him to step down, after a really criticized debate performance in June 2024.

After Biden said in an ABC news interview that only “The Lord Almighty” could persuade him desired to drop out, he wrote a letter to the congressional Democrats on July 8, wherein he explained “I am determined to stay in this raceto see this race through to the end and defeat Donald Trump.”

This comes as other distinguished democratic politicians are allegedly – and mostly private – calls on Biden to drop out of the race.

Biden has repeatedly stressed that he’s staying within the race, but that shouldn’t be necessarily the entire truth. Amy Lieberman, politics and society editor at The Conversation, spoke with Philip Klinkner, a Scholar of American politics and the Presidency at Hamilton College to higher understand what aspects might influence Biden's statements and his final decision to remain within the race or not.

Can we take Biden's words to remain within the race at face value? Do they reflect what is happening behind the scenes?

Biden obviously knows that his support amongst Democrats – mainly elected Democrats in Congress, governors and others – slipped. He knows that if he shows signs of indecision, he could get less support from Democratic politicians, which might result in much more hesitation. He is trying to keep up a brave facade to forestall defection, doubt and bleeding. So far, that hasn't really had the intended effect.

Every day we see a trickle of Democrats in Congress who’ve called on Biden to resign. Biden's approach can have prevented that trickle from becoming a flood, but it surely could develop into a flood at any time.

What aspects do these politicians consider when deciding whether or to not support Biden?

There are a variety of considerations. One argument is that Biden has obvious flaws, but is there anyone on the market who can be a greater candidate to face Trump? Another factor is that Biden has been a fixture in Washington, DC, for many years. Many of those persons are friends with him and have worked with him. They don't necessarily need to be the friend who finally ends up turning against him.

The other factor is that these politicians don't need to be those calling for Biden to resign if he doesn't go anywhere. Then Biden and the people working around him could later say, “You let me down when I needed you most.”

Have we ever seen politicians make a powerful commitment to remain within the race before suddenly changing their minds?

Politicians are at all times fully committed to a selected plan of action until they alter, they usually often express this in absolute terms.

In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern selected Thomas Eagleton as his vice presidential candidate. Then got here the news that Eagleton treated for depression and underwent electroconvulsive therapy. At that point, attitudes toward mental illness weren’t as tolerant as they’re today, and McGovern and Eagleton faced numerous criticism. McGovern initially said he supported Eagleton “1,000%”, after which he fired him a number of days later and removed him from ticket sales.

Until a day or two before Richard Nixon resigned as president In August 1974 he said he would never do it. For greater than a 12 months People called on Nixon to resign after the Watergate scandal, wherein Nixon agents were involved tries to bother the Democratic National Committee Headquarters. These calls intensified after the Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973, when he fired a special prosecutor and accepted the resignations of the 2 highest-ranking Justice Department officials—the attorney general and his deputy—who were involved within the Watergate investigation.

What was the critical moment in these two cases?

In Nixon’s case – and this might now also affect Biden – support for his own party collapsed. Leading Republicans in Congress went to the White House and said, “Look, you're going to be impeached if you don't resign.” Nixon asked Senator Barry Goldwater what his support was within the Senate. Goldwater said, “There are not any greater than 15 senators for you.”

In Eagleton and McGovern's case, the dearth of support inside their party was also a key consider changing their vice presidential candidate.

In the case of Biden, I feel that senior Democrats like Congressman Jerry Nadler saideven in private phone calls that he should resign will cause him to drop out of the race. Biden can only take care of that to a certain extent, since the more that happens, the more room and safety there’s for other Democrats to become involved.

Is there something else happening behind the scenes that has convinced Biden and his allies that he should stay within the race?

There were some exaggerations in how bad Biden's poll numbers actually are. Yes, Biden has dropped within the pollsbut it surely wasn't a free fall and it's still a really close race. Historically, we see that when a politician suffers a setback within the polls due to a selected incident, it's normally pretty short-lived. What the Biden persons are probably pondering is, “Yeah, we suffered a setback in the polls after the debate, but if you wait two weeks, the race will go back to where it was before the debate.”

When Trump was convicted in 34 cases of significant crimes in May 2024, that only The poll numbers barely movedPeople will not be pleased with the Trump versus Biden election, but most individuals know who they are going to vote for in this example.

Most candidates are relatively resistant to attacks from the opposite party. What hurts most is when people from your individual party start criticizing you.

That's exactly what's happening here with Biden. The Biden people say if everyone just joined in, we wouldn't see a drop within the polls.

20 years before WatergateThe national political ambitions of then-Senator Richard Nixon were in jeopardy. He was accused of using a personal slush fund of $18,000 to cover his expenses, and because the 1952 presidential campaign progressed, doubts concerning the legality of his conduct increased.

Nixon managed to proceed his long profession in national politics – and he retained the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket that yr – by delivering a speech on television and radio during which Checkers, his family's cocker spaniel, played a memorable role.

What Nixon’s “Checkers” speech was unprecedented and happened at a time when television was just starting to influence American political life.

Although the memory of that speech has faded, the episode offers a reminder, perhaps of little relevance to President Joe Biden as of late, of how political firestorms – and calls for a controversial Candidate resigns A national party list – can, under certain circumstances, be neutralised.

The “ladyThe case can also be a reminder that a touch of scandal doesn’t necessarily harm a political campaign.

Nixon on the crossroads

The Republicans of 1952, led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, won Landslide victory in 39 states concerning the Democratic presidential candidate, Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois. sweep of the Eisenhower-Nixon victory was a result that no pollster had expected, as I note in my 2024 book: “Lost in Gallup: Poll failure in US presidential election.”

But a Republican victory seemed anything but certain in mid-September 1952, when the New York Post reported that Nixon, then 39 years old, had benefited from a personal fund arrange by his supporters to cover expenses he incurred as U.S. Senator for California.

The then-liberal Post said the fund was backed by a California “millionaires' club” and was “dedicated exclusively to the financial well-being of Senator Nixon.” The nest egg enabled Nixon to live a lifetime of luxury far beyond what a senator's salary – $12,500 a yr, about $145,000 today – would allow, the Post claimed.

Nixon was taken completely by surprise and denied any wrongdoing. He was slow to comprehend that the Washington Post's revelations threatened his political profession. Not only did they forged doubt on the senator's judgment, however the report also appeared to contradict Eisenhower's promise to crack down on scandal, corruption and unethical behavior in Washington.

Nixon didn’t appear to be just “damaged goods,” as Tom Wicker put it in his Biography of NixonSuddenly he was “a liability” to Eisenhower, a five-star general and America's biggest military hero of World War II.

Calls for Nixon to desert his Republican candidacy quickly arose, even from throughout the party itself and its eastern establishment wing. Former New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, a double loser throughout the election campaign for the US presidency, called on Nixon to resign.

Nixon soon became the goal of boos from the group at campaign rallies. Many reporters covering the candidate assumed that he would should resign, and calls to that effect began appearing in newspapers that supported Eisenhower.

The Washington Post, for instance, wrote that Nixon's resignation would “provide the Republican Party with an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate the seriousness of its campaign against rampant behavior and corruption in government.” The New York Herald Tribune, a mouthpiece of the established Republican Party system within the East, called on Nixon to “make a formal offer to withdraw from the candidacy.”

Eisenhower, however, reacted cautiously to Nixon's continued presence and gave only half-hearted support to his running mate because the controversy escalated. He demanded that Nixon disclose all details concerning the fund.

A turnaround with Checkers

Nixon's response was to present his perspective to Americans on radio and tv from a broadcast studio in Los Angeles. half-hour speech was paid for by the Republican National Committee and aired continue to exist September 23, 1952, five days after the New York Post's report on the fund.

Nixon was alternately adamant, self-pitying and partisan throughout the broadcast. His wife, Pat, sat in a close-by chair, mostly out of camera range, and appeared dismayed the few times the camera was on her.

Nixon emphasized his humble origins and lifestyle, mentioning that his wife didn’t own a mink coat, which was a luxury item on the time. Instead, Nixon said, she wore a “respectable Republican cloth coat.”

He described his assets and liabilities intimately, saying, “It's not very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every penny we have is truly ours.”

Nixon said he had not given any “special favors” to the 76 donors who gave as much as $1,000 to the fund, which was established two years earlier. Its sole purpose, Nixon said, was to cover expenses “which I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.”

The fund’s largest single expenses were displayed $6,100 for stationery and $3,430 for travel. “Not a single cent” was spent on personal use, Nixon said.

Little of what Nixon described appeared to support the New York Post's claim that a fund had been arrange for his “financial security.”

Nearly twenty minutes into his remarks, Nixon invoked the Checkers Act, a passage that helped secure the speech an enduring place in American politics.

A Nixon supporter in Texas had given the pet to Nixon's family after hearing a radio broadcast during which Pat Nixon said her daughters would love to have a dog.

Not long afterward, Nixon said throughout the speech, “We got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went to pick it up. Do you know what it was?”

“It was a little cocker spaniel in a crate … sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little daughter Tricia, the six-year-old, named him Checkers,” Nixon said.

“And you know,” he added, “the kids loved the dog, like all kids do, and I just want to tell you one thing now: No matter what they say about it, we're going to keep Checkers.”

A “political masterstroke”

The author George D. GopenIn Assessment of the speech years latersaid the reference to Checkers figuratively allowed Nixon's daughters to “burst unseen onto the stage and dominate our consciousness while playing with their dog.”

“This is great thinking and really well written,” he wrote.

Immediately after the speech Robert Ruarka columnist, wrote that Nixon had essentially “stripped naked in front of the world and brought his wife, children and dog into the picture.” Nixon had sided with the vast majority of Americans, which Wicker described as a “stroke of political genius.”

At the tip, Nixon invited viewers and listeners to assist resolve his political fate by sending letters and telegrams – to not Eisenhower, but to members of the Republican National Committee. “Tell them,” Nixon said, “whether you think I should stay or go. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.”

Tens of hundreds of Americans responded by expressing their support for Nixon, and members of the Republican National Committee voted unanimously to maintain him on the ballot.

The final result was perhaps helped by less sensational revelations on the time, namely that Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate, had supported supplemental income funds for appointed state officials in Illinois and that his running mate, Senator John Sparkman, kept his wife on his congressional payroll for 10 years.

The day after the speech, Eisenhower met with Nixon in West Virginia and declared his vice chairman justified. “But you're my boy!” the Herald Tribune quoted the overall as saying.

A political disaster had been averted. Nixon served two terms as Vice President in Eisenhower's administrations and won the presidency twice before Resignation in August 1974 due to the Watergate scandal.

Nixon’s self-rescue throughout the 1952 election campaign was remarkable and maybe instructive. It suggested that a creative, high-profile and timely response can prevent sensational accusations from harassed candidacylike they almost did with Nixon.

The lessons of 1952 are, after all, only superficially relevant to Biden’s predicament after his recent disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump. While the long-ago Checkers speech doesn’t offer a sure-fire plan for surviving a political crisis, it does provide an enchanting context for 2024.

It is definitely noteworthy that in recent days Biden has Diversity of goal groupsincluding that of a TV networkin an urgent move to secure his candidacy for re-election.

Although Biden rejects their Results, surveys clarify Biden’s not successfulthat a brand new edition like Checkers just isn’t in sight.

In the run-up to the controversy between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in End of June 2024 has brought memories concerning the first televised presidential debate – and the way Vice President Richard Nixon's sweaty, worn-out appearance on that autumn evening in 1960 paved the best way for the tanned and telegenic Senator John F. Kennedy to enter the White House.

At least, that is the common opinion concerning the Kennedy-Nixon debate of September 26, 1960: Image won, Kennedy was rewarded and Nixon was punished.

“Kennedy won the election by a narrow margin, although most people believe he would never have had a chance without that first debate,” Time magazine said. declared in 2016when he lists the most important missteps in political debates. “It seems that Nixon's fatal mistake was that he failed to recognize the power of the visual image.”

Or as Max Frankel, then editor-in-chief of the New York Times, wrote sarcastically several months After Nixon's death in 1994, “Nixon lost a televised debate and the presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960 because he didn't follow the rules.”

Nixon could have been sweating under the new studio lights, but few pundits and analysts focused their comments on the vice chairman's appearance on the time. In a telling example of the fickleness of judgments within the moment, many pundits and analysts thought each candidates appeared nervous and unsure. Some of them said Nixon, still recovering from the consequences of a infected knee who had admitted him to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center at the tip of August 1960, had the upper hand within the confrontation.

At the time, the prevailing opinion was that this debate had not made any decision concerning the 1960 presidential election campaign.

The debate as a draw

What is commonly told to the general public today about this primary debate of its kindwhich took place without an audience in a Chicago television studio, doesn’t quite match the reactions and perceptions circulating on the time. As the aftermath of the controversy made clear, initial assessments could be fleeting and result in dramatic revisions.

I actually have examined quite a few newspaper articles, editorials and commentaries written immediately after the controversy to organize a chapter for “Doing it wrong”, my 2017 book about Media-driven myths. I discovered that there was no consensus amongst newspaper columnists and editorial writers about Nixon's performance. Not everyone thought Nixon's performance was terrible or necessarily liked Kennedy.

Two days after the controversy, the Washington Post stated in an editorial: “Of the two performances, Mr. Nixon's was probably the smoother. He is an accomplished debater with professional elegance, and he managed to convey the slightly condescending impression of a master teaching his pupil.”

The moderator of the controversy, Howard K. Smith of ABC News, was later quoted as saying that he thought Nixon was “slightly better” than Kennedy.

Saul Petta well known columnist for the Associated Press, praised Nixon's radiant warmth. “In terms of popular approval, both before and during the debate,” Pett wrote in an article published the following day, “my scorecard showed Nixon slightly ahead, at least 8 to 1. … He smiled more often and more broadly, especially at the beginning and end of remarks. Kennedy only occasionally allowed himself the luxury of a quarter smile.”

Walter Lippmann, a number one newspaper commentator of the time, mentioned Nixon's behavior at length in his column the day after the controversy, saying the tv cameras “were very hard on Mr. Nixon. … They made him look sick, which he is not, and they made him look older and more worn out than he is.”

This effect, Lippmann wrote, “was a misrepresentation and we need to ensure for the future that the cameras are indeed impartial.”

Doubts concerning the impact of television

However, one other columnist, William S. White, questioned the powerful impact of television on politics, writing: “There is, after all, no magic formula for getting to the presidency on electronic waves: no gold mine of easily won votes in television heaven.” Television was nothing recent in 1960. About 87% of American households Back then, everyone owned not less than one television set. But the role of television in American politics was still changing.

Of greater importance, not less than to some analysts, was Nixon's tactics throughout the debate. For example, he seemed inclined to debate things the best way Kennedy had presented them. In his opening statement, Kennedy said: expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of the country Amid the uncertainties of the Cold War, he said, “This is a great country, but I think it could be an even greater country; and this is a powerful country, but I think it could be an even more powerful country.” He concluded his opening remarks by stating, “I think it's time for America to get moving again.”

Nixon, speaking after Kennedy, denied that the country had “stood still” throughout the Eisenhower years, but said, “I fully agree with the spirit that Senator Kennedy expressed tonight, the spirit that the United States should move forward.”

He concluded his opening speech with the words: “I do know that Senator Kennedy feels these issues just as deeply [facing the country] like me, but our disagreement will not be concerning the goals for America, only concerning the means to attain those goals.”

Whether Nixon was attempting to curb his combative tendencies or appeal to wavering Democrats, his remarks seemed strangely defensive and respectful.

“Nixon was so insistent that he shared all of Senator Kennedy's worthy goals that one could expect Nixon to support the Democratic program at any moment,” columnist Joseph Alsop wrote sarcastically just a few days after the controversy.

So what modified the consensus on the primary debate from a tie to Nixon's on-air destroy? The answer undoubtedly lies within the seek for a post-election explanation for Kennedy's victory. He won the referendum by 0.2 percentage points or around 118,000 votes.

Historian of Campaign 1960 have identified that numerous variables could have influenced the end result in such an in depth race. But political journalist Theodore H. White writes in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Making of the President, 1960”, argued that the televised broadcast of the primary debate was crucial.

“Until the cameras were on the Senator and the Vice President,” White wrote in his 1961 book, “Kennedy was the boy the Vice President had attacked and harassed as immature, young and inexperienced. Now he was obviously the Vice President's equal in flesh and blood and in behavior.”

Whether television was so enlightening and conclusive is debatable. Less controversial, nonetheless, is the sensation today that television made a difference. As historian David Greenberg wrote about this primary televised debate, “the perception The influence of television changed American politics and shaped the behavior of politicians and candidates for decades.”

One could easily add to this remark: the perception of the influence of television similarly modified the overall opinion concerning the very first presidential debate.