adlai stevenson stevenson. the polling indicated that this race was so close that could be won by either candidate, that it could go either way way. a narrow election was anticipated by the polls as this article about the gallup poll suggests. it's despite the equivocation the pollsters as they do, set the agenda, set the narrative for, the news media and others about this election in 1952. the expectation was it's going to be a tight race between eisenhower, stevenson. that's not how it turned. that's not how it turned out. eisenhower won in a landslide that no pollster anticipated it. indeed, almost no pundit anticipated the landslide he won eisenhower carried the popular vote by almost percentage points and more than 440 electoral votes. it was a crushing landslide for the republican candidate, eisenhower eisenhower pollsters were confused as to what happened, trying come up with explanations in the immediate aftermath of this surprise. it seems that undecided were a major factor in the polling surprise of 1

in another scenario, he said it would be 3 to 1 for the democrat adlai stevenson. and that latter scenario, you come up with a 50/50 tie. a 50/50 tie. why the undecided voters may have swung to dwight eisenhower late in the campaign was his pledge, in late october 1952, to go to korea. go to korea. then the scene of a long protracted stalemate of a war between the united states, its south korean allies and the north koreans and the chinese. that war had begun in 1950. and by late 52, had settled into a stalemate. eisenhower, a war hero from world war ii, suggested that he was going to go. in, fact stated openly that he would go to korea to seek a way to end the stalemate, and the conflict, and the bloodletting. that announcement may have been enough to tip most of the undecided voters in his direction. in any, case the undecided vote and how to allocate undecided voters was a difficult situation for the pollsters in 1952. criticism about the outcome was weathering. a newspaper and masshutts, the berkshire county eagle, said the pollsters were unable to tell a tidal

the "meet the press" candidate interview has been a staple from adlai stevenson, who said, "i do not seek, i will not seek the democratic nomination for the presidency" and was the democratic nominee two months later after saying that, to shirley chisholm, who spoke about her groundbreaking 1972 bid tight on this program, to the more than three dozen active presidential candidates that i've interviewed as moderator of this broadcast. and it has launched candidacies. long before he ran for office, ralph nader's appearance in 1966 generated so much mail for this broadcast that the post office finally called "meet the press" and offered to deliver nader's mail directly to him. in 1960, just a month after his speech to the greater houston ministerial association, our first catholic president, john f. kennedy, appeared here to answer questions about whether in the united states there should be a religious test for office. >> i hope no one would vote for me, either for me or because of my religion. now, i've said that consistently, and i mean it because it's an important election. there ar

and when jack kennedy to be the vice-presidential nominee himself taking the second spot to adlai stevenson. he said you shouldn't be on the ticket unless lyndon johnson is object the ticket. i'll put money in it. there is a near miss in 1956 and then sets his sights in 1960. it's important to note that jack kennedy and his father had enormous admiration for lyndon johnson, bobby kennedy, however, was, as we discussed earlier, looked upon lyndon johnson differently and looking out for his brother's interests, tries to take lyndon johnson out of it. >> president obama was the first sitting senator to be elected since jfk, correct? did i get that right? >> lyndon johnson-- with vice-president-- sitting president. >> sitting senator. >> yes, that's correct. >> richard nixon, jfk and lbj all knew each other from capitol hill. >> they did. >> what was their relationship, if any? especially the r and the d part of that relationship? >> you know, it was a different time. if you look at the laws that eisenhower, kennedy, and johnson put into place, so many of them were bipartisan driven and we don'