Ghosts of 1960

Change the names and these positions sound exactly like one of the main arguments this year.

8. Nixon stressed his experience against Kennedy's youth and inexperience. The same, of course, is John McCain's principal selling point against Barack Obama.

Nixon said that the times were too grave for America to try inexperienced leadership; McCain says the same.

All of this, obviously, applies now to Barack Obama.


Differences

1. Nixon was a Republican who was relatively young, trying to succeed the oldest president up until that time, a member of his party who was very popular.

McCain is a Republican who is the oldest presidential candidate, trying to succeed a younger president, a member of his party who is very unpopular.

2. Dwight Eisenhower had ended a war and "waged peace" for seven-and-a-half years.

    George W. Bush started a war and waged war for five-and-a-half years.

3. Ike remained popular. His silence through much of the campaign hurt Nixon, and his entry into the campaign in its final days helped Nixon.

The opposite is true of Bush, whom McCain needs to keep quiet and out of sight throughout the campaign.

4. The conventional wisdom this year is that "the future" is Obama's issue, as it was Kennedy's in 1960. In that year, Nixon claimed the past.

Nixon ran on the "Peace and Prosperity" that he said the president of his party had produced during the preceding eight years.

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