Tag: Richard M. Nixon

by Rick Manning   The 2024 election may very well be viewed similarly to the 1960 presidential election in terms of what matters in influencing voters. The 1960 presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon featured the first ever televised presidential debate was viewed on 66.4 million televisions. To put this into context, a total of 68.8 million people voted in that election. Voter turnout increased to the highest level since 1908. For the next 60 years, television was the kingmaker as polling after the first debate showed that those who watched on television thought Kennedy won and those who listened to it on radio identified Nixon as the winner of the debate.  (Sidenote: If you want to experience how dumbed down our current politics are, listen or watch that debate and remember that half of America stayed tuned to it.) Television was king. At the University of Southern California in my Media Politics class, the Professor led with the following line, “If you learn nothing else from this class, the only thing you need to remember about media and politics is ‘television, television and television’.” And that is all I remember from that class. But today the winds…