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What Barack Obama Learned From Richard Nixon

By Glenn Church | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack

The Obama campaign has promised to contest all 50 states. Does that mean he plans to visit all 50? No, Obama has wisely chosen to say “contest” not “visit.” That is because he has learned an important lesson from the last President to try a 50-state campaign — Richard Nixon.

In 1960, Richard Nixon made even a better promise. Nixon promised to visit all 50 states. He made that vow during his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention.

It goes to show that Tricky Dick could keep a promise. Nixon did visit the 50 states. Unfortunately, it probably cost him the 1960 election to John Kennedy — one of the closest in history.

Three days before the election, Nixon had visited every state except for Alaska. Aware that he would be accused of breaking a campaign promise before even being elected, Nixon spent that last weekend on a long plane trip to Alaska. That might have let him carry Alaska, as he only defeated Kennedy there by a little over 1% or 1,100 votes. However, Alaska was only three electoral votes. Nixon ended up 51 electoral votes, although only 110,000 popular votes behind Kennedy.

Nixon lost Hawaii, New Mexico, Missouri, Illinois and New Jersey by less than 1% — a total of 63 electoral votes. A better placement of his resources at the end of the campaign could have made a difference.

Interestingly, this is the first year since 1960, that Alaska has been up for grabs. It has been a reliable Republican state, but polls show Obama as close as 4% to McCain. An Obama visit just might do some good, as long as it is not on the last weekend of the campaign.

(from Foolocracy.com)

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “What Barack Obama Learned From Richard Nixon”

idiocy rigns Says:
August 24th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
We have G Bush to blame for all this. What a maroon.
What BO Learned From RN : The New Nixon: News and Commentary about the President, his Times, and his Legacy Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
[...] Glenn Church on the vital difference between Sen. Obama’s pledge to contest all 50 states and VP Nixon’s 1960 pledge to visit them. [...]

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