Richard M. Nixon - "Checkers" (1952)

At the 1952 Republican national convention, young Senator Richard M. Nixon was chosen to be the running mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.,Nixon had enjoyed a spectacular rise in national politics. Elected to Congress in 1946, he quickly made a name for himself as a militant¹ anti-Communist while serving on the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1950, at age 38, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and became an outspoken² critic of President Truman's conduct of the Korean War, wasteful³ spending by the Democrats⁴, and also alleged⁵ Communists were in the government.,But Nixon's rapid rise in American politics came to a crashing halt after a sensational⁶ headline appeared in the New York Post stating, "Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." The headline appeared just a few days after Eisenhower had chosen him as his running mate. Amid the shock and outrage⁷ that followed, many Republicans urged Eisenhower to remove Nixon from the ticket before it was too late.,Nixon, however, in a brilliant political maneuverer, took his case directly to the American people via the new medium of television in a nationwide hookup. With his wife sitting stoically nearby, Nixon offered an apologetic explanation of all of his finances, including the now-famous lines regarding his wife's "respectable Republican cloth coat" and the tale of a little dog named Checkers given as a present to his young daughters. "...I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it.",He turned the last section of his address into a political attack, making veiled accusations⁸ about the finances of his opponents and challenging them to provide the same kind of open explanation.,Although it would forever be known as Nixon's "Checkers Speech," it was actually a political triumph for Nixon at the time it was given. Eisenhower requested Nixon to come to West Virginia where he was campaigning and greeted Nixon at the airport with, "Dick, you're my boy." The Republicans went on to win the election by a landslide⁹.,