Many thought the thirty-minute speech to be maudlin, mawkish, and third-rate theater. Gen. Lucius Clay proclaimed it the "corniest thing I ever heard," but he marveled at its effectiveness whence came across a teary elevator man obviously touched by the contents of the speech — mostly a list of Richard M. Nixon's financial assets and liabilities that painted a portrait of Nixon as an Everyman and a victim of vicious slander. The message behind the detailed list of debts owed was excruciatingly clear: his political career was in jeopardy, and his television audience of fifty-eight million — at that time a record number —would decide if he was guilty of using an eighteen-thousand-; dollar campaign fund for personal use. Whether disgusted by Nixon's shameless play for Middle America's sympathy or moved to tears by the vice-presidential nominee's mortgage, few could deny that Nixon...