Kennedy or Nixon

does it make any difference?.

de Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Every presidential campaign has its facile and fashionable clichés. The favorite cliché of 1960 is that the two candidates, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, are essentially the same sort of men, stamped from the same mold, committed to the same values, dedicated to the same objectives -- that they are, so to speak, the Gold Dust Twins of American politics. This cliché is reinforced by the contention that, after all, there is very little to choose between their parties either -- that the Democrats and Republicans have come to settle on much the same ground in domestic as well as foreign policy, that the bad old disagreements have pretty much passed away, and that, when the inquiring foreigner asks, "What is the difference between your two parties?" the honest American is impelled to answer, "Damn little any more." This essay is an attempt to explore these clichés. It will seek to establish that there is a considerable difference between the two candidates -- their personalities, their policies, their parties -- and that this difference may be vital to the safety and survival of our nation in the troubled years ahead.