The Checkers Speech is the speech in American history associated with emotional appeal, so much so that it has entered the political lexicon as a shorthand for emotionally charged political speeches.

There have been plenty of passionate and emotional appeals in America's history, but none so thoroughly drenched in it as this one. It isn't any one phrase or paragraph, though the Checkers story got the most attention over the years. It's the way Nixon presents himself: how the stage has been carefully orchestrated, his wife sitting there gazing lovingly at him and smiling in her "respectable Republican cloth coat" (129).

It's a wonder the two Nixon kiddies weren't playing with Checkers on the rug by the fireside.

So much of the content of this speech comes back to this appeal—from the way Nixon presents their finances as honest hardworking people, to the sort of benign and temporarily embarrassed way he talks about their debts. While Checkers the dog is the most adorable aspect of this appeal, the end of the speech is also a classic tactic in American politics.

Nixon picks one letter from who-knows-how-many he receives, and uses it as a tear-jerker: it's from a woman whose husband is stationed in Korea and has never seen his new baby. All she wants is to be reunited with him, and she thinks Eisenhower and Nixon are the men to do that. She sends him a $10 campaign contribution. It's very heartfelt and moving, and was an artful crowning touch to the speech.