Quote:
Originally Posted by cpr
(especially as the other Kennedy tricks became known, eg turning up the heating for TV debates as Nixon sweated easily, so looked stressed).
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Hmm, I've never heard this claim before. Everything I've read about that debate states that Nixon was tired and didn't know how to properly apply makeup. Here's an excerpt about that debate from
The Museum of Broadcast Communication:
In August, Nixon had seriously injured his knee and spent two weeks in the hospital. By the time of the first debate he was still twenty pounds underweight, his pallor still poor. He arrived at the debate in an ill-fitting shirt, and refused make-up to improve his color and lighten his perpetual "5:00 o'clock shadow." Kennedy, by contrast, had spent early September campaigning in California. He was tan and confident and well-rested. "I had never seen him looking so fit," Nixon later wrote.
I think it was just a matter of Nixon not realizing the power of Television.