Kliph Nesteroff has a terrific article up about Richard Nixon and his relationship with television, especially Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and its head writer/producer Paul Keyes. I was on the fringes of a lot of this and know many of the folks involved and everything Kliph has written coincides with my knowledge…and I see that Chris Bearde endorses it all in Kliph's comments section. Chris was one of the most important folks in the creation/production of Laugh-In so that's a darn good piece of confirmation.
It's arguable, of course, how much impact Nixon's cameo spot on Laugh-In contributed to his election and I'm inclined to think its impact has been exaggerated. Then again, it didn't hurt and what may have helped him even more was that Keyes made sure the show was largely devoid of Nixon jokes, allowing through only the kind that didn't wound. You know, when you're doing jokes about politicians, you can make fun of their sanity or you can make fun of their choice of tie. They're both jokes about the guy but the tie jokes don't cost him votes and may even humanize him. I did meet Paul Keyes a few times and didn't like him much. I have loads of Conservative friends (and I was even pretty Conservative myself back then) but Mr. Keyes struck me as the kind of person who thinks that the richer you are, the better you are as a person in the only ways that matter, no matter how you made your money. No wonder he got along so well with Nixon.