Each of 1960's campaign cards features descriptive text and a photo, nearly all of which are from the original race. I asked Matthews and co-designer Christian Leonhard how much research went into choosing and developing the cards.
Leonhard: "As designers, we owe a tremendous debt to Theodore White's Pulitzer-winning account of the 1960 election (The Making of the President, 1960), virtually every page of which suggested a card idea which eventually made its way into the game. OK, that's an exaggeration, but not by much. Other books and internet resources were useful as well, most notably in digging up contemporary events which, while not tied directly to the campaign itself, had significance with respect to such issues of the day as the ongoing Cold War and the struggle for civil rights.
"[A] great deal of effort went into balancing the individual cards and playtesting them in various combinations with each other to identify any problematic interactions. Complicating all this was our desire to maintain balance among the cards across a variety of different measures. Not only are there the same overall number of cards in the deck beneficial to each player, for example, but the relative strength distribution in the cards is preserved for each player as well. In other words, both players have not only the same number of cards in the deck overall, but also the same number of 4-point cards. The same goes for the debate issue icons, with each being evenly distributed across both players and all point values."
Published by Z-Man Games and designed by Leonhard and Matthews, 1960: The Making of the President is for 2 players, ages 12 and up. It takes about 90 minutes per game. The suggested retail price is $49.99.