Nixonette

English

"Nixonette" dress (on left)

Etymology

From Nixon +‎ -ette.

Noun

Nixonette (plural Nixonettes)

1. (US politics, historical) A young woman who performed as a dancer/cheerleader at campaign rallies for Richard Nixon.
   • 1969, David English and the Staff of the London Daily Express, Divided They Stand, London: Michael Joseph Ltd, →ISBN, page 285:

     The entrance to the hotel was flanked, as if it were the doors of a potentate’s private suite, with two bands and the high-kicking Nixonettes.

   • 1972, “August 1972”, in Patty Newman, editor, Perched Like a Weather Vane, San Diego, Calif.: World Research, Inc., pages 89–90:

     At the Republican convention the nominee was staying in Key Biscayne, but you could not get in the Doral because you might assassinate a Nixonette. […] I wanted to tell a Nixonette that it was a well-known fact that McGovern is anti-music and his advisors are still trying to decide his stand on the love question … but she’d probably just grin and nod and say “that’s right” in a positively Nixonette manner … and I’d get the grues again.

   • 2007, Janet Mason Ellerby, “Richard Nixon and Me”, in Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother’s Memoir, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, →ISBN, section “San Marino, 1962”, page 24:

     But, while I was still the girl my parents expected me to be, I was asked to be a Nixonette, and I merrily, unthinkingly donned my white dress and red, white, and blue banner. One of our Nixonette duties was to stand on the curb in front of the San Marino Republican Headquarters and welcome the candidate to town.