In 1960, after two terms of the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, a well-respected five-star General, America faced an interesting predicament. In many ways this predicament can be viewed as the daunting task of redefining what exactly the average citizen wanted out of a presidential candidate. Almost certainly this was on most levels an unconscious shift of perspective, reliant on many factors, the most important being the influence of emerging media. In the fall of 1960, both incumbent Vice-President Richard Nixon and Democratic young-gun John F. Kennedy now stood on the cusp of a new and dangerous field, one which would ultimately change the face of political campaigning forever. With the advent of television as  a viable news source, and the announcement of the first televised Presidential Debates, 1960 would prove crucial to the future of Presidential Debates and the effects they would produce on voters.

 

The election season of 1960 was also known as one of the earliest started campaign trails in history. While both the campaign teams of Nixon and Kennedy realized that this election would be monumental in scale, each had very different styles. The Kennedy campaign team seemed to recognize from the get-go that television would play the largest role in gaining momentum for their run at President. The New York Times stated in the month preceding the debate, [1]

“Contrasts Evident: The tickets and the organizations to elect them offer interesting contrasts. Mr. Nixon, despite all his efforts of recent years, remains to many the symbol of the “low road” campaigns of American politics… Senator Kennedy, making his first national campaign, won the primaries while largely avoiding personal attacks on his opponents, and giving his own personality the maximum exposure on television.”

This seemingly simple remark would go on to foretell not only the future of this election but for all elections to follow after. What the American people wanted out of a President was beginning to become apparent; appearances and first impressions.