Clinton, Trump: heed JFK lesson

It is one of the idiosyncracies of the American presidential electoral system that the candidates of the two largest political parties – here read Hillary Clinton of the Democrats and Republican nominee Donald Trump – engage in a series of televised debates prior to polling day on Tuesday, November 8.

It is a format not without its hazards for both individuals in a widespread nation where the vote of what is called Middle America can hang on a careless phrase or an adverse perception during the five face-to-face meetings between Clinton and Trump – and it can be decisive.

Such was certainly the case back in 1960 when Republican candidate Richard Nixon met his match in a young Democrat senator from Massachusetts, John F Kennedy, a candidate not expected to hold a candle to his opponent.

Kennedy came across as knowledgeable, open and caring. In contrast, Nixon presented a forbidding presence, exacerbated by a five o’clock shadow the Republican candidate had decided, of his own volition, not to tone down with television make-up.

Nixon’s appearance in the debate led to a poster of his face over the phrase “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

History records that Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th Century. In the national popular vote, Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College, where he needed 269 to win, he took 303 votes to Nixon’s 219.

According to the pundits, in a race seen as being as close as it was in 1960, a composed Clinton came off best against a blustering Trump in their first meeting. But there is more to come as this particular political saga plays its way out.

And both candidates would do well to heed the lessons of fairly recent American history.