Word: voters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Throughout the campaign, the political uses of television advertising and packaging of candidates were heralded by proponents as the inescapable wave of the future and by doomsayers as the ominous forerunner of 1984. The voters issued different ratings. On balance, the Almighty Tube gave and it took away: of 26 clients in statewide races managed by media experts, 13 won and an equal number lost. Television was undeniably effective in primary campaigns where virtually unknown opponents vied for voter recognition...
Shortly before the campaign began in earnest, Political Statisticians Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg published a book, The Real Majority, that was to underscore President Nixon's 1970 strategy. The typical American voter, the authors argued, could be found at the political center. They sketched a portrait: "The Middle Voter is a 47-year-old housewife from the outskirts of Dayton whose husband is a machinist." Scammon and Wattenberg did not have a real person in mind, but a Dayton newspaper and the local machinists' union decided that she was Mrs. Bette Lowrey of suburban Fairborn...
...stirring up the voters, Nixon seemed to forget that his is a minority party-and the high voter turnout worked against him. In several races, the Administration misgauged the independence of many voters, who picked and chose in an unusual display of ticket-splitting. Observes TIME Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey: "Never has the American voter so totally thumbed his nose at outside interference, money, buncombe, hate and the lofty lamentations of the pious. Particularly in the last ten days, Nixon's campaign was an appeal to narrowness and selfishness and an insult to the American intelligence. He diminished...
...Senate." That is probably claiming too much. In many places the Nixon-Agnew approach evidently hurt. In others, it is possible to argue that the results would have been roughly the same no matter what Nixon did or what he might have done. Only in one sense were the voters predictable this year: the polls did fairly well in forecasting the outcome of various races. But in general, it was an election of patterns broken and theories confounded. TV blitzes had less impact than predicted. Racial tension did not prevent black victories. Despite the tendency to turn out incumbent state...
...enough, New Deal memories had grown too dim. Brock carried the normally Republican eastern third of the state easily, cut into the Democratic central region, and cleaned up in the rural western end of the state, where George Wallace is popular. An American Broadcasting Company voter profile showed Brock scoring heavily in Memphis, farm areas, suburbs and working-class precincts. From these he put together a majority...