1964 United States presidential election (Rocky)

The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Nelson Rockefeller, the Republican nominee, and George Wallace, an independent candidate, in a landslide.

Johnson took office on November 22, 1963 and emphasized the continuation of his assassinated predecessor, John F. Kennedy. He easily defeated a primary challenge by Governor George Wallace of Alabama, to win the nomination to a full term. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson selected Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota as his running mate. In the Republican contest, New York Governor a leader of the liberal wing of the Republican party, defeated senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania.

Johnson championed his passage of the Civil Rights Act, and advocated a series of anti-poverty programs collectively known as the Great Society. Rockefeller focused on his liberal policies and worked to gain the support of moderates by campaigning on his record on civil rights and his policies as Governor of New York. His campaign did little to appeal to conservatives who had supported Goldwater and focused heavily on the West and Midwest. Wallace focused his campaign on being the conservative choice in the election, including opposing desegregation and the Civil Rights Act. Wallace's campaign only had appeal in the Deep South.

Democrats campaigned heavily on the incumbent aspect of Lyndon Johnson, campaigning on the accomplishments of Lyndon Johnson. Attack ads became widely used in this election, with Rockefeller attacking Johnson on the Billy Sol Estes scandal. The Republicans would attempt to characterize Johnson as a corrupt politician, heavily publicizing Johnson's involvement with Sol Estes in contrast to Rockefeller's clean record. Johnson led polls at the beginning of the campaign, however his lead began to shrink as the Republican attack ads were produced. Johnson would respond to the Republican attacks by attacking Rockefeller's divorce of Mary Clark and subsequent marriage to Happy Murphey, a divorcee with four children. The scandal would hurt Rockefeller's stance with women voters and harm his standing in the election. Wallace's campaign focused heavily on segregationist policies and a failed attempt to gain the support of the Midwest labor unions, the major party candidates gave Wallace no publicity and refrained from attacking him, which ultimately gave his campaign little attention causing him to remain a Southern candidate.

Johnson won 31 states and the District of Columbia, which voted for the first time in this election. Rockefeller performed well in traditionally Republican eastern states and the Plains States. This was the last election in which the Democratic nominee won North Dakota and Alaska.

Johnson's landside victory coincided with the defeat of many conservative Republican congressmen. The subsequent 89th Congress would pass major legislation such as the Social Security Amendments of 1965 and the Voting Rights Act. The 1964 election marked the beginning of a major, long-term re-alignment in American politics, as Rockefeller's unsuccessful bid began a transition towards conservatism in the Republican Party. The movement of conservatives in the Republican Party continued, emboldened by Goldwater's defeat for the nomination, culminating in the 1980 presidential victory of Ronald Reagan.

Assassination of President John F. Kennedy


President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Supporters were shocked and saddened by the loss of the charismatic President, while opposition candidates were put in the awkward position of running against the policies of a slain political figure.

During the following period of mourning, Republican leaders called for a political moratorium, so as not to appear disrespectful. As such, little politicking was done by the candidates of either major party until January 1964, when the primary season officially began. At the time, most political pundits saw Kennedy's assassination as leaving the nation politically unsettled.

Candidates
The only candidate other than President Johnson to actively campaign was then-Alabama Governor George Wallace, who ran in a number of northern primaries, though his candidacy was more to promote the philosophy of states' rights among a northern audience; while expecting some support from delegations in the South, Wallace was certain that he was not in contention for the Democratic nomination. Wallace, after the nomination of Nelson Rockefeller, would go on to run an independent campaign. Johnson received 1,106,999 votes in the primaries.

At the national convention, the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) claimed the seats for delegates for Mississippi, not on the grounds of Party rules, but because the official Mississippi delegation had been elected by a white primary system. The national party's liberal leaders supported an even division of the seats between the two Mississippi delegations; Johnson was concerned that, while the regular Democrats of Mississippi would probably vote for Goldwater anyway, rejecting them would lose him the South. Eventually, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther, and the black civil rights leaders, including Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bayard Rustin, worked out a compromise: The MFDP took two seats; the regular Mississippi delegation was required to pledge to support the party ticket; and no future Democratic convention would accept a delegation chosen by a discriminatory poll. Joseph L. Rauh Jr., the MFDP's lawyer, initially refused this deal, but they eventually took their seats. Many white delegates from Mississippi and Alabama refused to sign any pledge, and left the convention; and many young civil rights workers were offended by any compromise. Johnson biographers Rowland Evans and Robert Novak claim that the MFDP fell under the influence of "black radicals" and rejected their seats. Johnson lost Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

Johnson also faced trouble from Robert F. Kennedy, President Kennedy's younger brother and the U.S. Attorney General. Kennedy and Johnson's relationship was troubled from the time Robert Kennedy was a Senate staffer. Then-Majority Leader Johnson surmised that Kennedy's hostility was the direct result of the fact that Johnson frequently recounted a story that embarrassed Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, the ambassador to the United Kingdom. According to his recounting, Johnson and President Franklin D. Roosevelt misled the ambassador, upon a return visit to the United States, to believe that Roosevelt wished to meet in Washington for friendly purposes; in fact, Roosevelt planned to — and did — fire the ambassador, due to the ambassador's well publicized views. The Johnson–Kennedy hostility was rendered mutual in the 1960 primaries and the 1960 Democratic National Convention, when Robert Kennedy had tried to prevent Johnson from becoming his brother's running mate, a move that deeply embittered both men.

In early 1964, despite his personal animosity for the president, Kennedy had tried to force Johnson to accept him as his running mate. Johnson eliminated this threat by announcing that none of his cabinet members would be considered for second place on the Democratic ticket. Johnson also became concerned that Kennedy might use his scheduled speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention to create a groundswell of emotion among the delegates to make him Johnson's running mate; he prevented this by deliberately scheduling Kennedy's speech on the last day of the convention, after his running mate had already been chosen. Shortly after the 1964 Democratic Convention, Kennedy decided to leave Johnson's cabinet and run for the U.S. Senate in New York; he won the general election in November. Johnson chose United States Senator Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota, a liberal and civil rights activist, as his running mate.

Primaries
[[File:1964RepublicanPresidentialPrimaries(Rocky).png|309px|thumb|upright=1.4|Republican primaries results by state

{{legend|#c1c1c1|No primary held}} {{legend|#423121|John W. Byrnes}} {{legend|#a59400|Barry Goldwater}} {{legend|#73638c|Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.}}

{{legend|#668c63|Jim Rhodes}} {{legend|#5d73e5|Nelson Rockefeller}} {{legend|#c67742|William Scranton}}

Technically, in South Dakota and Florida, Goldwater finished in second to "Unpledged Delegates", but he finished before all other candidates.]] The Republican Party (GOP) was badly divided in 1964 between its conservative and moderate-liberal factions. Former vice president Richard Nixon, who had been beaten by Kennedy in the extremely close 1960 presidential election, decided not to run. Nixon, a moderate with ties to both wings of the GOP, had been able to unite the factions in 1960; in his absence, the way was clear for the two factions to engage in a hard-fought campaign for the nomination. Barry Goldwater, a Senator from Arizona, was the champion of the conservatives. The conservatives had historically been based in the American Midwest, but beginning in the 1950s, they had been gaining in power in the South and West, and the core of Goldwater's support came from suburban conservative Republicans. The conservatives favored a low-tax, small federal government which supported individual rights and business interests, and opposed social welfare programs. They also supported an internationalist and interventionist foreign policy. The conservatives resented the dominance of the GOP's moderate wing, which was based in the Northeastern United States. Since 1940, the Eastern moderates had defeated conservative presidential candidates at the GOP's national conventions. The conservatives believed the Eastern Republicans were little different from liberal Democrats in their philosophy and approach to government. Goldwater's chief opponent for the Republican nomination was Nelson Rockefeller, the Governor of New York and the long-time leader of the GOP's liberal faction.