From Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President 1968 – a young Roger Ailes, formerly exec producer of the Mike Douglas Show, has been hired to produce ten live one-hour programmes featuring Richard Nixon. Nixon met the 28-year old Ailes before he appeared on the Douglas show.

“It’s a shame a man has to use gimmicks like this to get elected,” Nixon said.
“Television is not a gimmick,” Ailes said.

(BTW Nixon beat Mitt Romney’s dad to the Republican nomination) As he prepares for the last two shows of the 1968 campaign, Ailes reflects:

“This is the beginning of a whole new concept,” Ailes said. “This is it. This is the way they’ll be elected forevermore. The next guys up will have to be performers.”

Nixon wound up his last broadcast like this:

“I’m not a showman,” Richard Nixon was telling America. “I’m not a television personality.”

And Ailes’s assessment?

“Tonight,” he said, “this was the Nixon I met on the Douglas show. This was the Nixon I wanted to work for.”

Of course, that was a golden age. They do things different now…