The First Modern Campaign Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960

In this engaging book, Gary Donaldson tells the story of Kennedy versus Nixon with a sharp eye for the salient political developments and a keen sense of the drama of an election that was unlike any other the nation had experienced. The campaign of 1960 was also an orchestrated political drama, organized for a sweeping campaign from coast to coast and staged for a national television audience. This made it the first modern campaign in which the television media changed the dynamics of presidential politics and in which photographs, charisma, and direct appeals to voters counted as they had never done before. It was also an election of intense personal rivalry made all the more spirited by the prejudice against Kennedy's Catholicism and his intention to widen the American political arena. Not since Theodore White's journalistic account of the campaign, iThe Making of the Presidenti, has attention been paid to the full 1960 campaign as it played out in the early primaries and then culminated in the November election. Donaldson shows why the whole political season that resulted in Kennedy versus Nixon is critical to understanding American politics today. iKennedy-Nixon and the Election of 1960i is essential and engaging reading for anyone interested in contemporary politics in the United States.

Gary A. Donaldson is professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana