My “Tricky Dick: Richard Nixon, Poker, and Politics” class is going well so far. We’re about halfway through the semester, and as the course is organized chronologically to follow RMN’s life and career we’ve now arrived at the tumultuous year of 1968 when Nixon completes what was really a most improbable comeback to win the presidency.
After losing a very close election to John F. Kennedy in 1960 (Nixon’s first political defeat), then getting soundly beaten by Pat Brown in the 1962 California governor race, it seemed very likely Nixon would be moving on from politics, probably using the law degree he’d earned from Duke University to move over into a legal career.