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Though Eisenhower called Nixon "the most valuable member of my team," it was a poorly kept secret that he considered his Vice President "too political," too unimaginative, too much a man without real roots, to fill the top job. He even made a stab at keeping Nixon off the ticket for a second term. But Nixon rallied grass-roots Republican support and Ike abruptly caved in.
He did, however, hurt Nixon—inadvertently or otherwise—just as the 1960 presidential campaign was about to get under way. Asked whether any major Nixonian ideas or policies had been adopted during the past eight years, Ike said: "If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember."
The four televised debates with Kennedy damaged Nixon more. Particularly in the first confrontation, Nixon appeared tired, edgy and stiff; his makeup was a disaster. Overall, the debates did much to project the image of Kennedy as a smooth, graceful aristocrat with the easy manners of wealth and good schooling. In contrast, Nixon suggested a sweaty sense of social inferiority. Nixon had much in his favor—eight years of national, highly visible experience; Kennedy was a Catholic, very young, a rich man's son. The election was a near thing. Kennedy won by only 113,000 votes out of 68.8 million.
Seeking a new political start, Nixon challenged the popular Edmund ("Pat") Brown for the governorship of California in 1962, but was beaten by 300,000 votes (out of 5,850,000). Fatigued and haggard, Nixon mounted a podium at Los Angeles' Beverly Hilton Hotel the following morning and, to the astonishment of the assembled newsmen, lashed out angrily at them. "Just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."
The 37th President
In the wake of that embarrassing demonstration, almost every commentator wrote that Nixon was politically washed up. He moved to Manhattan, which seemed to strip him of a power base but actually propelled him into the heady world of big law and big money. Said Nixon: "Any person tends to vegetate unless he is moving on a fast track."
As a $200,000-a-year law partner and the seigneur of a posh Fifth Avenue apartment, Nixon was soon jetting all over the world, touching base with statesmen and politicians. Most important, speech-making and fund-raising favors for G.O.P. candidates and committeemen from Florida to California won him liens on votes to be cast at future nominating conventions.
In 1964 Nixon gave full support and substantial time to Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign. He knew Goldwater had no chance, but his efforts in a lost cause won Nixon the gratitude of G.O.P. conservatives and helped to convince all of the party's factions that it would take a centrist—not a man at either extreme—to win the next presidential election. In 1966 Nixon barnstormed so energetically for Republican Congressmen and Governors that an irritated Lyndon Johnson labeled him a "chronic campaigner."
In 1968, to refute those who said that he was a born loser, Nixon entered six presidential