The Contenders
OST commentators appear to have awarded the first round to Senator Kennedy after the Presidential candidates' initial TV contest; but probably neither of them will get much bene- fit from it. Vice-President Nixon looked more careworn than he did on his visit to England last year—possibly the fault of a make-up designed, apparently, to understate his jowls. As Nixon's cartoonist's-delight characteristic is his pear- shaped face, this was a mistake; at times it seemed as if we were looking not at him but at his reflection in an elongating distorting mirror. And his smile, which flicked on and off as if regulated by some master switch in Republican headquarters, was not a success; endearing enough, but too contrived. Mr. Kennedy did better, but he does not know how to relax for television; he has the unhappy knack of making even spontaneous replies sound studied. Still, both of them showed an enviable ability to talk quickly, sensibly, and to the point—even when their subjects, to an alien ear, were uninteresting. They did not entirely avoid political clich6—Mr. Kennedy even spoke of the need to implement goals—but where they used it, it was as a kind of oratorical shorthand, rather than—as it so often is here—as a substitute for comment.
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