President Eisenhower’s popularity rating dropped 12 points in a week

President Eisenhower’s normally steady popularity rating dropped 12 points in a week after a Viking rocket crashed having risen only two feet above Cape Canaveral on 6th December 1957. The Americans were desperately trying to launch their first Vanguard satellite in response to public outrage and fear because they had fallen behind the Russians who had successfully sent Sputniks 1 and 2 (the latter containing an unfortunate and possibly communist dog) into orbit.

(I learnt this by listening to extracts read from Bill Bryson’s latest book which is about his childhood in 1950s Des Moines, Iowa. They were on BBC Radio Four’s Book of the Week last week. The author could also be seen visiting places featured in the book on ITV’s South Bank show last Sunday. He must have a good agent.)

Thus is demonstrated that fickle or easily led electorates are not a feature only of the twenty-first century.