Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (1961). Pardon the poor quality of the screen shotted screen shot.

A few comments–

The Andy Griffiths Show. Who, in 1961, would have thought– even with prescient– that The Andy Griffith Show would have lived on into 2020? But it has.

Those numbers are astonishing! It would be interesting to compare the increase in numbers of TVs to increase in numbers of personal computers, …

The crappy old book is extremely interesting if you are interested in the history of political history/journalism. I’ve not read the whole thing, nor the other two he wrote on the next elections, but I have read his memoir. [Sorry 1-handed me doesn’t feel like doing refs this evening.]

White’s description of the circumstances of first debate provides some details that aren’t discussed any more, namely that Nixon had a serious 5 o’clock shadow. (For the lowT folks, that’s when your beard grows throughout the day such that by 5pm you looked like you haven’t shaved.) And he refused to wear make up– just some beard dust that tracked his sweat. Apparently, folks with new TVs did not cotton to streaky faces.

What most most interesting– and I have no dog in this fight, I was 2 at the time– is White’s summary: everything that could have gone wrong on a personal level, went wrong for Nixon in the 1st debate. He wacked his leg that had been injured a few weeks before getting out of the car in Chicago the day before the debate. White says he turned palid. His advisors told him to wear a lighter colored suit, the studio background was light colored. JKF wore a navy suit which shone against that background while Nixon’s pixels were indesirnable. (sp)

More of this chapter below if you are interested.