Word: elected
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Nowhere is it more apparent that the 1960s have ended than in the offices of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. For it was Nixon himself, a boring heavy-handed politician--a man who conveys all the warmth and personality of an armadillo--who ended the 1960s fling with charismatic politics. His election symbolized the revenge of the unbeautiful. Richard Nixon, bless his heart, was a loser...
...elect an armadillo? First, you always refer to him as "The President." It helps if you send him off to China to give him a little glamour, so that people will say, "He may be an armadillo, but look at what he's managed to do." But most important, you never apologize for anything, and you assume that since most voters secretly believe that they are dull, they will welcome a candidate who is dull and proud...
...also re-elect an armadillo by convincing people that it is less dangerous to have around than a sidewinding snake. And this is just what the Nixon campaign merchandisers have tried to do this year. A Republican background paper outlining tactics in New York promotes Nixon's most boring qualities--his "purposeful, sensible national leadership." Boring Nixon is then contrasted with the pimply weirdos of what the backgrounder describes as the "McGovern Crowd," who sound like a gang of ultraviolence freaks out of A Clockwork Orange. The backgrounder notes that it was the "McGovern Crowd" who "humiliated the party leaders...
...dusk, with signs and slogans and Captain Keith's sliding crowd estimates reverberating in their heads, several hundred newsmen finally stumbled out of their buses and into the Tarrytown Hilton. The Finance Committee to Re-Elect the President had contracted with the Hilton to provide reporters with a newsroom, free telephones, and free food and drink. The few journalists who were so elite that they did not have to file a story on the day's events by early-evening deadline time headed for the bar. Most of the rest headed for the Grand Ballroom to write their stories...
After seeing it in operation, it is impossible to be sure whether the Campaign to Re-Elect the President is putting the country to sleep, or whether it is creating a constituency as calculating and self-interested as the President himself...