In this Sept. 19, 1968, file photo, then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon flashes the victory sign as he acknowledges cheers from the crowd, at the fairgrounds of Springfield, Mo.

The Eights | 1968 Presidential Primaries and Nixon's Brand of Populism

The Brian Lehrer Show | May 16, 2018

Cokie Roberts, NPR commentator and the author of Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation (Harper Perennial, Reprint 2009), and Elizabeth Drew, the journalist, contributing editor to The New Republic and the author of Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall (The Overlook Press, 2014), discuss the 1968 presidential primaries by looking at Nixon's opponents, and how Richard Nixon won the election with his brand of populism.

@ElizabethDrewOH says the Nixon of '68 had been in the House, the Senate, VP - "he was not an un-respectable figure...the Nixon who got elected had experience." (Though, she says, he had earned the nickname "tricky Dick" by that point...)
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) May 17, 2018

'68 Nixon voters calling in say they were disappointed with the Democrats after the convention in Chicago that year; and one adds he thought Nixon would be better able to get the US out of Vietnam.
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) May 17, 2018

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