I happen to be old enough, just barely, to remember the Kennedy-Nixon campaign of 1960. That was the presidential election when the process really started morphing into show business, when television performance skill became a job requirement. Nixon and Kennedy had the first debate ever between candidates on TV....

Kennedy won the debates because of his performing skill -- he was convincingly witty and debonair and earnest -- and he won the election.

When Richard Nixon was running again eight years later, he had learned the show business lesson--In his fashion. He went on the hip primetime comedy show Laugh-In...

CLIP: Nixon -- "Sock it to me?"

...thus humanizing himself. Slightly.

Since then, whether or not the best man has won, the better TV performer ALWAYS has: Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton over all comers...even the two George Bushes, neither of whom are great performers, over Mike Dukakis and Al Gore, who were even worse.

Nowadays every president and would-be president strives to put on a good show. Some weeks ago John Kerry dressed up in a leather jacket and rode a Harley Davidson onto the Tonight Show set for his guest appearance.

Not unlike when a little over a year ago, the current President Bush dressed up in a Navy flight suit and flew a warplane onto an aircraft carrier for HIS guest appearance there.

So they're all actors and spokesmodels in our contemporary political theater... but what about actual artistic performances? I'm not aware of presidents doing Shakespeare or modern dance....but, according to Andy Lanset, there are some musical performances to consider… and it didn't start with Clinton....

All in all, it's a slim show musical talent on the part of our Commander in Chiefs.

Thomas Jefferson and John Tyler played the violin. Warren Harding is said to have had some facility with the alto horn and cornet. And Calvin Coolidge reportedly let loose every now and then on a harmonica.

Some have argued that it's no surprise President Clinton chose a wind instrument to express his musical and artistic self. But criticism aside, there's little doubt his sax wielding appearance on the Arsenio Hall show was a turning point for his campaign for the Presidency…..(fade up music) And here, when he jammed at a Jazz Club in Prague in July 1994, he was perhaps the kind of diplomat no one could argue with.

President Harry Truman reportedly was a youngster who never needed prodding to practice his piano lessons. It's said that he used to get up at 5 a.m. to practice for two hours. The fact is, music was his passion, after politics... and he often said that if he had been a good pianist he never would have become President. On October 11th 1957, in Kansas City, Missouri, Truman delivered this rendition of the Black Hawk Waltz.

When he was in office, a Steinway was one of the few pieces of furniture he had moved from the White House to Blair House while the White House was being renovated.

That piano eventually made its way back to Truman thanks to President Nixon who presented it to the former President on March 21st, 1969.

When presenting the piano to Truman, Nixon sat down and produced this opus.

Nixon was by all accounts, a fairly good pianist, as non-professionals go. And to be fair, I don't this is his best work but it's all I was able to locate at the Nixon materials project at the National Archives.

Nixon also played the violin, clarinet, saxophone and accordion. And like Truman, he commented that he often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in his day, he might have chosen a career in music instead of politics. But we'll leave that for the historians to ponder.

Now that our presidents and would-be president's are all confirmed baby boomers there's always the chance that one of them was in a rock band. So, it's no surprise John Kerry was caught in the early 1960s playing bass with the Electras, a group of 7 attending St. Pauls Prep in New Hampshire.
While the Electras never went beyond some dances, parties and the school prom, they did cut an album with a pressing of about 500 copies. One will now do quite well on Ebay --- if you can find it.

But, we can be thankful for one thing, that President Lyndon Johnson never pursued a career as a vocalist. The former president joined his dog Yuki for a few bars on September 18th 1972.

If it's put to a vote, I'll take Clinton on the saxophone any day…

For Studio 360, I'm Andy Lanset

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