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Constructing Nixon’s Majority

Winning Rhetoric in the Presidential Election of 1972

Constructing Nixon’s Majority cover

Constructing Nixon’s Majority

Winning Rhetoric in the Presidential Election of 1972

Description

This book reframes the 1972 election as a masterclass in political messaging, strategy, and the manipulation of national divisions. Drawing on extensive archival research, it reveals how Nixon's campaign reshaped American conservatism, laying the groundwork for modern political polarization.

Frank Kusch argues that Nixon's landslide was the product of a carefully orchestrated campaign that capitalized on the fears of a conservative electorate uneasy with the social upheavals of the 1960s. By presenting Nixon as a steady leader amid turmoil, his campaign forged a coalition defined less by polices it championed than conditions it opposed-radicalism, protest, and chaos.

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  • PDF/UA-2, 1.4
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  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Performance Anxiety
2. Heartland Homilies, Northern Strategies
3. Partisans
4. Unhorsing Big Ed
5. The Making of the Extremist
6 Above the Battle
7. “Unlikable”
8. Colson Style
9. The “Front-Porch” Campaign
10. Big Meany
11. “One Hell of a Landslide, Mr. President”
12. A “Realistic Morality” Mandate
13. The “Republican Roosevelt”
Acknowledgments
Notes

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 08 Oct 2026
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Pages 288
ISBN 9798216488675
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Frank Kusch

Frank Kusch is a historian and writer whose previo…

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