that the electorate as a whole was not exposed to McGoverns vision of the future or to the specific form that vision would take. Voters were more likely to see the specifics of McGoverns proposals retracted from attack ads by the republicans than in the democrats spot advertising. It can possibly be concluded that although McGovern may have held many of the same issue positions as many Americans, that his inability to inform the public about his issue positions may have been a factor in his loss of the election.The possibility that McGovern was unable to inform his potential supporters does not mean that Nixon was a victor based solely on the possible failures of McGovern. Nixons policy beliefs were shared with many Americans. In polling of four specific policy issues: Vietnam, Aid to Minority Groups, National Economic Maintenance, and Penalties for the Use of Marijuana, President Nixon was seen to share more of the same policy positions in all four categories amongst the people surveyed. In Vietnam policy, Nixon was seen to share the same policy opinion as 56 percent of those surveyed compared to McGoverns 31 percent. Dealing with aid to minority 45 percent of those surveyed saw Nixon as holding a similar position to theirs, compared to McGoverns 26 percent. Nixons position on economic maintenance was similar to the positions of 53 percent of those surveyed while McGovern only related to 27 percent. The position Nixon took on penalties for use of marijuana were similar to that of 41 percent of those surveyed, while only 27 of the people surveyed identified McGoverns position as close to their own. A similar survey done by the Gallup poll reported that 56 percent of Americans believed that Nixon could do a better job dealing with Vietnam than the 26 percent that thought that McGovern could do a better job. Also helping Nixon is the fact that he was the incumbent, most people already knew what he stood for, and they did not...
