1960: Kennedy-Nixon

Sept. 26, 1960. We watched the first televised presidential debate, Kennedy vs. Nixon, together. Mom and Dad and Chip and me. We wanted Kennedy badly. In our house it was about the first Catholic president. And Dad’s roots in Massachusetts. And his story of how Kennedy had asked to meet Mom, in Washington, when Dad testified in congress about the Korean war. I was 12. My friends and I all cared about Kennedy vs. Nixon.  

If you saw those debates today, you’d be amazed. Both candidates were so polite. The complemented each other on several occasions. It was all about the space race and the Russians. Both of them stood on solid party platforms, Democrats vs. Republicans; but they had to point out the differences.

From summer through fall, there were TV commercials about it. If you get a chance, do a web search and try some of them. They seem so silly today, but they were serious to us at the time. Singing commercials with ad-like musical jingles. Kennedy commercials touted his pregnant beautiful wife Jacqueline (Jackie)and his three-year-old daughter. He was “old enough to know and young enough to do.” Nixon commercials touted his experience against the Russians. He promised to keep the peace by opposing the Russians. Peace enforced by strength.

All of it, of course, played out on black and white television. There was no color TV. We say the commercials on our shows because we saw all the commercials on our shows, with no time shifting. And occasionally we saw the network news.

The issues were clear, even to 12-year-old me. The space race, communism, Russians, and maybe, in the background, racial inequality. I couldn’t have quoted you Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that said no, separate was not equal. And white suburban Los Altos had no integration issues. But still, we were aware. It came up in Mom’s kitchen often.

Kennedy had a huge likeability factor. The young senator with his gorgeous wife and young daughter. His Massachusetts accent matched Dad’s accent.

As kids we were Kennedy or Nixon on the playground, on the bus, and in the classroom. The teachers encouraged it. Our opinions were almost always those of our parents.

That Kennedy was Catholic was a big deal in our house; but I didn’t hear that as an issue on television, the debates, the commercials, or with adults or even kids on the playground.

Years later I read that the election was so close that the decider might have been Kennedy shaving before the televised debates while Nixon didn’t. His five o’clock shadow made his seem somehow untrustworthy. Kennedy was also hard on the fight against communism and blamed Nixon for the communist takeover of Cuba.

For us, my friends and I, it was the first election we were aware of. Like a huge popularity contest and choosing sides.