(4 of 9)
A sure sign of concern was a massive last-minute surge of Republican advertising. Nixon's managers had planned all along to spend $10 million to boost their man, 70% of it on television. When Humphrey began gaining with alarming rapidity, the budget was increased to $12 million, including an additional $1,700,000 earmarked for TV. Extra 60-second spots were booked on programs in 15 states, including the eight so-called "battleground states" that account for 227 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory—California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas. In a final-week electronic blitz, Humphrey spent $3,000,000 on TV, and the G.O.P. was not far off that figure.
Amidst the mounting unease in the Nixon camp, the candidate was one of the few who appeared confident, if visibly strained in the end. Part of it, perhaps, was the politician's façade. But part was genuine. This was, after all, his last chance and it would hardly do to lose control at the very end. Pooh-poohing the pollsters, Nixon predicted that he would outdraw Humphrey by 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 votes.
The final margin was embarrassingly short of that estimate. To be sure, the smooth success of his early campaign strategy gave ample reason for optimism. Determined to shuck his loser's image, he entered six primaries, won them all— frightening off Michigan's Governor George Romney before the balloting even began in New Hampshire, and forcing New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller into fatal blunders of indecision. California's Governor Ronald Reagan was never a real threat; besides, after the 1964 Goldwater disaster, the G.O.P.'s centrist and progressive wings wanted nothing more to do with the chimeras of the right. Nixon won almost effortlessly in Miami Beach, and without tearing the party apart.
Looking ahead to the struggle with the Democrats, Nixon shrewdly assayed the contest even before Miami Beach: "If there's one thing the American people don't want, it's what they've got." Ironically, this familiar veteran of 22 years on the U.S. political scene set himself up as the candidate who could best effect change—and successfully persuaded the voters to accept that image. The Democrats, to be sure, made it all the easier by nominating a man who, whatever his personal credentials, was indissolubly linked with the Johnson Administration's failures in Viet Nam and in the cities.
Marvels of Precision
In charting his campaign, Nixon never lost sight of the fatal flaws that marred his 1960 contest with John F. Kennedy. As he wrote in Six Crises: "I spent too much time in the last campaign on substance and too little time on appearance. I paid too much attention to what I was going to say, and too little to how I would look." Slightly cynical, perhaps, but by reversing the emphasis, Nixon did, after all, manage to win.