JOSEPH CAMPBELL: One memorable speech can turn around a faltering campaign − how Nixon did it with his ‘Checkers’ talk.
In the immediate aftermath of the speech, Robert Ruark, a syndicated columnist, wrote that Nixon had effectively “stripped himself naked for all the world to see, and he brought the missus and the kids and the dog … into the act.” Nixon had aligned himself with mainstream Americans in what Wicker described as a “political masterstroke.”
Nixon closed by inviting viewers and listeners to help decide his political fate by sending letters and telegrams not to Eisenhower but to members of the Republican National Committee. Tell them, Nixon said, “whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.”
Americans responded by the tens of thousands, expressing support for Nixon. Members of the Republican National Committee voted without objection to keep him on the ticket.
The outcome was perhaps encouraged by less-sensational disclosures at the time that Stevenson, the Democratic presidential nominee, had supported supplementary income funds for appointees to state positions in Illinois and that his running mate, Sen. John Sparkman, had kept his wife on his congressional payroll for 10 years.
The day after the speech, Eisenhower met Nixon in West Virginia and declared his running mate vindicated. “Why, you’re my boy!” the Herald Tribune quoted the general as saying.
A political disaster had been averted. Nixon served two terms as vice president in Eisenhower’s administrations and twice won the presidency before resigning in August 1974 over the Watergate scandal.
Nixon’s rescuing himself in the 1952 election was notable and perhaps instructive, suggesting that a creative, high-profile and timely response can prevent sensational allegations from overwhelming a beleaguered candidacy, much as they nearly did to Nixon.
Nixon was 39 when he delivered the Checkers speech. Biden is a quite fossilized 81. How is his equivalent media experience going today, on the safest of safe leftist venues? Watch: Joe Biden Goes on Morning Joe, Appears to Read From a Script and Starts Screaming Incoherently.
And given Brandon’s recent foray into spray tans, there’s a weird sense of déjà vu going on here:
Calling into his favorite show to say all the polls he sees have him winning, brag about his crowd sizes, rail against "the elites," and dares anyone to challenge him at the convention. What year is this? Who is the president?
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) July 8, 2024
