Oh, for the days of a Kennedy-Nixon showdown

Jun. 18—Former President Donald Trump claims New Mexico is his to win. If I believed him, I would go through the torture of watching his joint television appearance next week with President Joe Biden.

CNN bills the event it's broadcasting as a debate. That's like the guy who sweeps up after circus elephants saying he loves being an entertainer.

Spin, insults and revisionist history don't make a debate. Nor will those tactics change minds in New Mexico, a state Trump lost in the last two presidential elections.

For Trump to take New Mexico this year, he would have to contain his xenophobia until November. And voters would have to develop amnesia regarding Trump's calls for the Central Park 5 to be executed. The Black teenagers turned out to be innocent, a status Trump tried to claim for himself after a jury convicted him of 34 felonies.

Neither CNN's show nor a similar one in September will influence most voters. That got me to wondering whether the groundbreaking televised debates of 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were more insightful or at least more interesting.

I watched all four the other day, and I was impressed in spite of many flaws.

Kennedy and Nixon spent most of their time answering questions from other white men who worked for television networks. It was jarring to see only light-skinned males interrogating the candidates about segregation, fairness in employment and the possibility of a cold war turning hot.

That said, the Nixon-Kennedy discussions were far better than what passes for a modern presidential debate. Both candidates maintained a civil tongue. Part of it was they had been freshmen congressmen together and had gotten along. But each also knew rudeness or animus would hurt his cause.

In the first debate, Kennedy saved his harshest attack for the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "I'm not satisfied when I see men like Jimmy Hoffa in charge of the largest union in the United States still free," Kennedy said.

As a Democratic senator, Kennedy served on a committee that investigated corruption in labor unions. The committee's lawyer was Kennedy's younger brother, Robert, who despised Hoffa.

After John Kennedy won the presidency, he appointed his brother as attorney general. Robert Kennedy formed what he and his staff called the Get Hoffa Squad. Its mission was to put the Teamsters' leader in a cell.

Hoffa, a Republican, eventually was convicted of a series of crimes and sentenced to 13 years in federal prison. Nixon later won the presidency, and he commuted Hoffa's sentence after less than five years served.

If a powerful labor leader could back a Republican in 1960, so could the first Black man hired by a Major League Baseball team in the 20th century. Jackie Robinson an immortal member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was put off by Kennedy.

Nixon "was the most sincere as far as civil rights were concerned," Robinson said after receiving audiences with each candidate. In that era, Black people often supported Republicans, the party of Lincoln and of Jack Roosevelt Robinson's namesake, Theodore Roosevelt.

Kennedy in the first debate worked to knock down imagery that he was a wealthy Harvard man who didn't grasp the injustices of a segregated society.

"I'm not satisfied until every American enjoys his full constitutional rights," Kennedy said in his Boston brogue. "If a Negro baby is born, and this is true also of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in some of our cities, he has about one-half as much chance to get through high school as a white baby. He has one-third as much chance to get through college as a white student. About half as much chance to own a house."

Kennedy scored points with liberals and with many in the political middle ground. An oddity was the strongest racist in any statehouse, Gov. John Patterson of Alabama, who said his man Kennedy won the debate.

Nixon, from an impoverished farming family in California, challenged Kennedy's commitment to civil rights, notably in their second debate. Nixon raised the idea of Kennedy paying more attention to the electoral map than to justice when Kennedy chose Lyndon Johnson of Texas for the second spot on the Democratic ticket.

"Let's look at the performance," Nixon said. "When [Kennedy] selected his vice presidential running mate, he selected a man who had voted against most of these proposals and opposes them at the present time."

Still, rancor was absent from the debates. Nixon's assessment of Kennedy choosing Johnson was as close as anything came to a personal attack, and it was a fact-filled statement. As a congressman and a senator, Johnson had opposed desegregation bills. He would have a role reversal in his own presidency.

Kennedy, Nixon and Johnson — all flawed, all accused or guilty of corruption — weren't necessarily better men than today's candidates. But they weren't about to mock competitors or slap unfavorable nicknames on them.

Candidates feared voters in 1960. They had good reason.

Seventy million of the country's 110 million adults watched the first Kennedy-Nixon debate. If they didn't like what they heard from one candidate, they wouldn't hesitate. Unlike followers of convicted felon Trump, they would vote for the other guy.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.