Opening his presentation, Mr. McClaughry made a disclaimer to the audience that even though he worked on the Nixon Presidential Campaign, Reagan Presidential Campaign, and was a Sr. Policy adviser for Reagan, he was not a campaign strategist. He started off talking about the similarities between an election 40 years ago (1968) and the election later this year.
Key points Mr. McClaughry made during his presentation included the differences in how the nominee for each party was elected 40 years ago versus today-For example, he made the claim that there were more primary elections on "Super Tuesday," (02/05/08) than there were during the whole year of 1968. In addition to that, Mr. McClaughry pointed out the fact that many of the presidential campaigns start out much early now than they did in 1968.
Additional points he added were the fact that there were no campaign contribution limitations in 1968, while there are fairly strict campaign contribution limitations today. Following his synopsis of the way things were in 1968 versus the way things are now, he went on to state who he thought which candidates had the best chance of winning nominations and their potential vice presidential candidates.
For the Republican Party, Mr. McClaughry seems assured that John McCain will get the nomination despite his apparent dislike for him. Also he was undecided between Hilary Clinton and Barrack Obama for the democrats.
This was a very interesting presentation from someone who seemed to have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the field of political campaigns. Though Mr. McClaughry did seemed very biased towards the right-wing Republican Party, he did treat the other side of the spectrum with respect and I think that made him appeal to me more as a speaker.
Though the presentation was informative, I felt Mr. McClaughry dealt too much with the reminiscence of how it used to be. I understand he was trying to draw comparisons to the times, however, I think he failed to convey how different the Country actually is today-Something that would have made his presentation much more effective. All in all I enjoyed the presentation and learned from someone who was in the middle of things 40 years ago.
