Nixon debate debacle tame by ’16 standards

As this drained and disenchanted voter braces for yet another televised presidential debate, my hope is that the predictable nastiness and loathing — savagely smash your opponent with smears and insults — is mercifully close to an end.

Meanwhile, my mind reaches back 56 years to a far more civil and meaningful debate.

It was the early evening of Sept. 26, 1960, on Greenman Street in Milton, Wis. I sat on a big homemade pillow (my mom was a gifted seamstress) on the floor of our family room, glued to our 13-inch, black-and-white television set with its rabbit-ear antenna.

I was a well-read high school senior in a small liberal arts college town, and I stayed informed on national and international issues. I was energized with anticipation vis-à-vis the very first televised presidential debate.

It was Vice President Richard Nixon vs. Sen. John Kennedy. I was too young to vote — you could be shipped off to Vietnam at 18, but you had to be 21 to vote for the politicians who made decisions on war. Still, Kennedy was a scholarly and refreshingly articulate personality on the scene, and I was in his camp.

The Cold War and the threat of a nuclear attack loomed large and created stress, but Kenney’s reasoned tone, with that Boston accent, stirred hope.

A member of my dad’s congregation had given us that little television set, whose picture quality was rarely crystal clear. On that September day, the picture on the debate channel was terrible. I adjusted the funky little antenna slightly, to no avail.

So, as a last gasp, it was Reynolds Wrap to the rescue. I cut a large swath of aluminum foil, wrapped it around the flimsy antenna, and I got an acceptable picture for the debate.

What I recall was the confidence and clarity in Kennedy’s presentation, and the sweat on Nixon’s forehead. Kennedy was tutored to look straight into the camera, and it made a difference. Nixon’s eyes wandered, and he looked tired.

It’s interesting that people who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon won, according to an article in Time magazine. But people watching the debate, including me, clearly saw that Kennedy had won. It may have helped him win the election.

Following that first debate — there were four in all — Kennedy’s campaign picked up endorsements and momentum. Seeing that, Nixon decided to try to slow JFK down by launching a cheap attack on Kenney’s faith.

Nixon’s dirty little maneuver (he certainly earned the “Tricky Dick” title) spread the idea that because Kennedy was Catholic, somehow Pope John XXIII would unduly influence U.S. policy, should JFK get elected.

The Nixon campaign distributed a pamphlet that read: “An American president should bow before no one but God.” It was an outrageous, patently unfair assault in that era.

Fast forward to 2016. Compared with the psychological carnage, the hatefulness and brutally toxic personal attacks we witness on debate stages (and elsewhere), Nixon’s dark little underhanded scheme was pretty tame.

Today, it isn’t the quality of the broadcast on my television screen that is concerning. It’s the pitifully poor quality of the conversation, if you can call it that, between the candidates.

I challenge any historian to locate a moment in American history when a candidate has rocketed to the top of the presidential primary heap through the use of misogyny, by threatening to deport 12 million people, by specializing in a daily drumbeat of slurs and insults, and by eschewing even a whisper of a specific policy that he might pursue should he be elected to the White House.

Donald Trump comes across as a bigoted, bullying buffoon, whose behavior is on a second-grade level and whose knowledge of the international political and social landscape mirrors that of a tiny snail in a Brazilian rainforest river.

Granted, JFK wasn’t perfect, but he inspired our country, founded the Peace Corps and he stood up to the Soviets, forcing them to remove their missile sites in Cuba, averting a potential nuclear war. What would Trump have done as president?

I shudder to think.

This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Nixon debate debacle tame by ’16 standards."