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This file contains:
From Colson to Haldeman RE: effective campaign attacks to use against McGovern in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/23/1972
From Charles S. Snider to Colson RE: the issue of trust and the perceived trustworthiness of RN and McGovern in the campaign. 4 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Letter], 9/22/1972
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This file contains:
From Colson to Haldeman RE: effective campaign attacks to use against McGovern in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 10/23/1972
From Charles S. Snider to Colson RE: the issue of trust and the perceived trustworthiness of RN and McGovern in the campaign. 4 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Letter], 9/22/1972
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Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
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3
9
10/23/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Colson to Haldeman RE: effective
campaign attacks to use against McGovern in
the closing weeks of the presidential
campaign. 2 pgs.
3
9
9/22/1972
Campaign
Letter
From Charles S. Snider to Colson RE: the
issue of trust and the perceived
trustworthiness of RN and McGovern in the
campaign. 4 pgs.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Page 1 of 1
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 23, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
H.R. HALDEMAN
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
SUBJECT:
Next two weeks.
I am convinced from listening to Sindlinger interviews on Saturday,
by my own analysis of poll data and by my seat of the pants political
instincts, that most people who are going to vote for the President
because of his record and his accomplishments, have already
decided how they will vote. Those who approve of the President
and think he deserves re-election have been sold.
At this stage of the game, people who are uncertain about supporting
the President are not going to be sold by being reminded of China,
Russia, SALT or any other positive Nixon accomplishment. Many
of them will choose us because we are the lesser of evils or, in the
case of large numbers of Democrats, because they are turned off
by McGovern. In my mind this is the anti-McGovern vote. If it
remains anti-McGovern, it will either come to us or stay home.
The key objective in my mind in the next two weeks is to keep the
undecided voter and the lukewarm Nixon support turned off on McGovern.
Most of these people are Democrats and Independents. The polls show
the Republican vote is remarkably solid and hopefully Clark will be
getting everyone of them out to vote.
I, therefore, believe that positive advertising will accomplish little
if anything in the last two weeks of the campaign. The Democrat or
Independent who is not sold on us is not going to be sold on us by
any classy commercials that we run in the next two weeks. We can,
2.
We however, keep him unsold on McGovern. Also, the negative
ads are Democrats ads. Just by running them we continue to remind
the disaffected Democrat that he is not violating his sacred vows by
supporting Nixon.
McGovern's strategic problems in some respects have been no different
than ours. He has been trying to win the disaffected Democrats by a
positive appeal to them and it obviously hasn't worked; it has by and
large failed. He has now begun negative ads against us (thank God
he didn't think of them sooner). These coupled with his hard hitting
attacks, Watergate, etc., could begin to have a corrosive effect.
What I am therefore recommending is a negative negative strategy.
If he is not countered, he can begin to persuade Democrats who don't
like him or are turned off by his views that while he may be a horse's
ass, Democrats should vote not for him but against us. We have to
continue to make him SO unattractive that no matter how bad a picture
he paints of us, they still will come to us instead of him.
In short, I don't think that there are many people left in the country
who can be persuaded to vote for Nixon. Those who are for us have
had plenty of time to reach that decision. I think there are a lot
of people, however, who are against McGovern and our job is to
keep them against McGovern. I am putting it hard on the surrogates
because I don't think in the critical period ahead we can relent on the
attack, but in my fiew we desperately need extensive use of the most
effective anti-McGovern TV commercials and newspaper ads. The
President's own campaigning will keep our own troops charged up
and will keep those who are for the President for him. Only the
attack and the ads will keep those who are against McGovern against
McGovern.
We can probably win the election by doing absolutely nothing for the
next 14 days. On the other hand, if we keep the heat on we can produce
a real landslide and the more Democrats we prevent from voting for
McGovern by forcing them, even if they can't buy us, to stay home,
The better the chance of bringing the Congress in with us, thereby
avoiding the inevitable recriminations from our own Party.
THE
WALLAC
WRH
CAMPAIGN
01
September 22, 1972
MTG w/
MAC Gream/mmsit
9/26/72
The Honorable Charles W. Colson
Special Council to President
White House
Washington, D. C. 20500
Dear Chuck:
Paul Johnson, the McGovern coordinator for more than half of
Florida, was in my office Thursday.
Here is what he said:
"I have been over North Florida and Central Florida where
I am the campaign manager for McGovern and I find that the
people are not for McGovern and they are not for Nixon. They
are still for George Wallace. They are waiting for George
Wallace to drop even a feather of a hint as to where they
should go. And that is where they will go."
He came here with a long brief on similarities between
McGovern and Wallace. It was a part of the increasing court-
ship of the campaign by the McGovern forces. They are using
"party man" and "Democratic candidate in 1976" and such other
hoopla to sell the thought that Wallace must annoint the
McGovern-Shriver ticket. There is an "undecided" group among
Wallace people, but it is decidedly more anti-McGovern because
of his supporters than the man or issues. I keep emphasizing
the word "supporters." So, when you say people are against
McGovern, they mean to a much greater degree, that they are
against welfare cheats, queers, amnesty seekers, militants,
hippies, etc. But somehow this supporter image has been
pushed aside. Paul Johnson said "We are having our young
people cut their hair, shave their mustaches, and clean up
to get away from bad supporter image." In line with this,
STAND UP FOR AMERICA
P.O. BOX 1972
TELEPHONE (205) 265-7081
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA 36103
The Honorable Charles W. Colson
Page 2
the McGovern national organization has attempted to employ as
a speechwriter and consultant one of our campaign people who
has been responsible for the Governor's statements since 1958.
He turned them down because he is loyal to me although the
offer was most attractive.
Now cometh Ted Kennedy. And in line with this, Morris Dees
has been on the phone almost daily to the man they tried to
employ as a speechwriter. He says the turning point of the
McGovern campaign would be the Wallace endorsement.
-
None of which is going to happen. Right now, we have a state
that is 99 and 44/100 percent pure Nixon and Alabama straws in
the wind will be a key to what Wallace does or does not do. I
have been keeping him informed of this feeling and it is
cemented at this stage.
Now, I would like to hitchhike mentally with you. In other
words, I want to present some viewpoints that in our intell-
ectual redneckism (as opposed to pointy-headed intellectuals)
might give you and the Nixon organization an insight that I
feel is missing.
We are in touch with all three parties and their supporters.
I believe I have found a key to this campaign that is not
present anywhere else in your organization.
The key word is trust. President Nixon said in his book "Six
Crises" that "in politics, victory is never total."
There is no total victory today. There is too much executi-
vists. Too much over-confidence. Too little impact to the
average citizen.
If I can drop back and punt for a second, McGovern came out
of the Democratic convention scarred to hell and back as a
hippie-loving, abortion-pushing, amnesty-favoring, homosexual
supported liberal. Then he capped this with the Eagleton dis-
aster. He was down and dirty and untouchable by average
citizens.
The Honorable Charles W. Colson
Page 3
Now, I want to make this point there are liberals and left-
ists but they are few in number and there are conservatives
like the Birchers, etc. but they are few in number. The
election is decided by average citizens who are not left,
right or middle of the road. They are political wanderers who
favor a little of the left, a little of the right, and a
little of the middle of the road. Mainly they are concerned
about a job, a three-bedroom house, a car, school, church,
children, maybe a boat, and retirement. They don't know
Bangladesh from an Eskimo, and they have absolutely no con-
cept about what is happening in Vietnam, Korea or Japan and
trade deficit is something for the economists.
They are sold politics by the tube. This is a TV political
year, pure and simple, and that's it. Right now, they have
McGovern, a man they can't stand. But the Democrats are working
on this in reverse. They are trying to destroy Nixon's
popularity by convincing the people that McGovern might be a
man you can't stand but Nixon is a man you can't trust.
So the word is trust. Trust is the key. So Nixon has to sell
trust. Only not trust in Nixon but trust in the people If
you could come up with a theme that Nixon trusts the people.
Nixon trusts America. Nixon trusts freedom. Nixon trusts the
realness of our times. Then you get away from trust in Nixon
and you associate trust with Nixon with trust in America and
trust in the people and everytime that McGovern and his crowd
try to break this trust image, they create an impression that
they don't trust the people, they don't trust America, they
don't trust freedom.
I know how I would have our man present this theme. And I
know how our staff could take this one line and break it off
in the McGovern crowd because they are saying you can't trust
America. In effect, they are still trying to sell the old saw
that "would you buy a used car from Richard Nixon?"
I see this. Others see this. This is what the next 40 days
is all about. The concept must be that trust is the key. The
wheat deal, Watergate, Vietnam, all of this is tied in to breaking
down trust in Nixon but if the Nixon team can turn this around and
make it appear that this radical crowd is trying to destroy trust
in America, then you have a victory so fantastic that even the polls
you now have would be underestimated.
The Honorable Charles W. Colson
Page 4
This "NOW, more than ever" line is great and I like it. I
know it is good. But where are the lines that go with it that
explains why? Why not because Nixon trusts the people and
Nixon trusts America--and that is why he is needed now more
than ever because our times demand trust.
I see things happening across the country that polls won't
reflect. The Democrats are still taking "issue" polls only--
not image polls. They are cracking on the anti-issues in an
attempt to crack trust.
I know the campaign is geared toward the middle of October
but I also know that NOW is the time for action to get the
Nixon campaign moving toward the Average citizen.
The average citzen wants to hear trust. He wants to be re-
assured. Reassured. Reassured. This what it is all about.
These are thoughts for what they are worth.
With kind personal regards, I am
Sincerely,
Charles S. Snider
Executive Director
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