The Making Of The President 1972; A Narrative History Of American Politics In Action [From the Dust Jacket]

xxii, [4], 419, [3] pages. Endpaper maps. Footnotes. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Ding to bottom edge of front board. Explores the complex interaction of men and events that shaped the 1972 Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. Theodore Harold White (May 6, 1915 - May 15, 1986) was an American political journalist and historian, known for his reporting from China during World War II and the Making of the President series. White started his career reporting for Time magazine from wartime China in the 1940s. He was the first foreigner to report on the Chinese famine of 1942-43 and helped to draw international attention to the shortcomings of the Nationalist government. After leaving Time, he reported on post-war Europe for popular magazines in the early 1950s, but lost these assignments because of his association with the "Loss of China". He regained national recognition with The Making of the President 1960, whose combination of interviews, on the ground reporting, and vivid writing were developed in best-selling accounts of the 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1980 presidential elections, and became a model for later journalists. With experience in analyzing foreign cultures from his time abroad, White took up the challenge of analyzing American culture with the books The Making of the President 1960, The Making of the President 1964, The Making of the President 1968, and The Making of the President 1972, all analyzing United States presidential elections. The first of these was both a bestseller and a critical success, winning the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. A riveting account of the 1972 presidential campaign and Richard M. Nixon's precedent-shattering landslide victory. From Wikipedia: The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican president Richard Nixon defeated Democratic U.S. senator George McGovern in a historic-level landslide. Nixon swept aside challenges from two Republican representatives in the Republican primaries to win renomination. McGovern, who had played a significant role in changing the Democratic nomination system after the 1968 presidential election, mobilized the anti-Vietnam War movement and other liberal supporters to win his party's nomination. Among the candidates he defeated were early front-runner Edmund Muskie, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey, governor George Wallace, and representative Shirley Chisholm. Nixon emphasized the strong economy and his success in foreign affairs, while McGovern ran on a platform calling for an immediate end to the Vietnam War and the institution of a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon maintained a large lead in polling. Separately, Nixon's reelection committee broke into the Watergate complex to wiretap the Democratic National Committee's headquarters as part of the Watergate scandal. McGovern's general election campaign was damaged early on by revelations from his running mate Thomas Eagleton, as well as the perception that McGovern's platform was radical. Eagleton had undergone electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment for depression, and he was replaced by Sargent Shriver after only nineteen days on the ticket. Nixon won the election in a landslide victory, taking 60.7% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states and becoming the first Republican to sweep the South, whereas McGovern took just 37.5% of the popular vote. Meanwhile, this marked the last time the Republican nominee carried Minnesota in a presidential election. This also made Nixon the first two-term vice president to be elected president twice. The 1972 election was the first since the ratification of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, further expanding the electorate. Despite this election delivering Nixon's greatest electoral triumph, Nixon later wrote in his memoirs that "it was one of the most frustrating and in many ways the least satisfying of all". …