It's not often that the two candidates in a Presidential election are sharply contrasted types. They were in 1952, when Eisenhower, the benevolent, fatherly national hero, the amateur politician who spoke in earnest platitudes, faced Stevenson, an "egghead," articulate and gifted, but probably too aloof and indecisive for the average voter. More often the personality of one candidate has been so strong as to force his rival completely off the stage, or else, rarely, the candidates have been strikingly similar. That seems to be the case this year.

Both Nixon and Kennedy are expert and coldly calculating politicians, with well-oiled organisations behind them. Nixon's was provided by the Republican Party, which has been grooming him during Eisenhower's term, and Kennedy's by the family fortune, but the end result is the same Both make good, well-polished speeches that say surprisingly similar things with a carefully controlled emotional content—just the right amount in the right places.