re: #342 sagehen

Amazing that a guy with that kind of victory on the way had such piss-poor internal polling that he thought he needed to cheat to win.

I don’t think it was internal polling that drove it. Nixon, from everything I’ve read on him, had become very paranoid by the time he became president. Particularly with respect to the Kennedys. He and JFK were friends early on, and apparently the Kennedys were ready to endorse Nixon in 1960 if JFK didn’t win the nomination. But things turned during the election.

Also, it’s not entirely clear that Nixon knew about the break in until after it happened, plausible deniability and all that. Most writing on it suggests that it was the brain child of G Gordon Liddy.