 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Republican Party was badly divided in 1964 between its conservative and moderate to liberal factions. Former Vice President Richard Nixon, who had been beaten by John F. Kennedy in the extremely close 1960 presidential election and subsequently mounted a failed bid for Governor of California in 1962, decided not to run. A moderate with ties to both wings of the Republican Party, Nixon had previously been able to unite the factions in 1960; his absence and the lack of an endorsement by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower cleared the way for the two factions to battle for the nomination. The early frontrunner, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, faced an insurgency from supporters of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, in addition to criticism of his recent divorce and remarriage. Despite Goldwater's initial refusal to run, the conservatives staged a successful draft movement and won control of the party.
Following the death of Senator Robert Taft, Goldwater had become the champion of the conservatives within the party. They favored low taxes and a small federal government which supported individual rights and business interests, and opposed social welfare programs. Since 1940, the Eastern moderates had successfully defeated conservative presidential candidates at the GOP's national conventions. The conservatives believed the Eastern moderates were little different from liberal Democrats in their philosophy and approach to government. Despite his initial frontrunner status, the negative publicity Rockefeller received from his remarriage combined with the effort of a grassroots conservative movement that ultimately defeated him in the California primary. The party's moderates and liberals turned to William Scranton, the Governor of Pennsylvania, in the hopes that he could stop Goldwater. However, the convention nominated Goldwater, who went on to lose a landslide general election against Lyndon B. Johnson
Background
editEver since Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide reelection in 1936, the Republicans had been split between the party's liberal and moderate wings, who catetred to the perceived liberal trend in voting preferences, and the conservative wing, who continued to reject the New Deal and Fair Deal programs and call for a strong anti-communist foreign policy. The conservatives pushed for "a choice, not an echo" - that is, a true conservative rather than what they saw as a restating of the Democrats' liberal principles, which they termed "me-tooism"[1] - and maintained that, given a choice between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican, the American people would choose the Republican. Although the tremendous popularity of moderate Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed the Republicans to retake the White House for the first time in twenty years in 1952, conservatives remained dissatisfied with him as well as his successor, Richard Nixon, who narrowly lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960.[2]
In light of Eisenhower's refusal to endorse a candidate,[3] Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination as the 1964 election cycle approached. A moderate (see Rockefeller Republican), he won re-election in 1962 despite his recent divorce. Meanwhile, Nixon made an ill-advised and ill-fated bid against California Governor Pat Brown, after which he ostensibly resigned from politics, famously stating in his last press conference, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Two days after Nixon's announcement, Rockefeller announced his remarriage to a much younger woman, Margaretta "Happy" Murphy, which hampered his chances at the nomination. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who had taken on the conservative mantle upon the death of Senator Robert Taft, was increasingly discussed as a possibility, yet he had no desire to run.[4]
The "Draft Goldwater" movement
editConservatives in the Republican Party had placed Goldwater's name on the ballot at the 1960 Republican National Convention, and in his concession speech, he said, "Let's grow up, conservatives! If we want to take this party back, and I believe we can someday, let's get to work." This led the editors of Time to write on August 8 that "Goldwater, in some imperceptible investiture, had been crowned king of the nation's conservatives."[5] In A Glorious Disaster, J. William Middendorf, who participated in what would later be known as the "Draft Goldwater" movement, pinpoints the start of the movement to a meeting between freshman Representative John Ashbrook of Ohio and William Rusher, publisher of the National Review, on July 10, 1961, in which they discussed the perceived leadership vacuum in the conservative wing of the party. F. Clinton White, the soon-to-be chair of the organization, was brought into what became a grassroots plot to nominate a candidate of their choosing at the next convention by gaining control of key positions in the party throughout the country.[6]
The organizers were able to involve Goldwater because their purpose was ostensibly to raise funds and campaign for various Republicans running for House and Senate seats; he made it clear from the outset that he did not want to be President. At a meeting on December 2, 1962, however, White told the 55 men who had assembled in Chicago, "We're going to take over the Republican Party." The next day, the CBS Evening News ran a story about the meeting, complete with tape recordings and a list of attendees. Goldwater explicitly distanced himself from the group, which was accused in various print media of trying to splinter the party, and reiterated his intention to run for reelection to the Senate in 1964.[7] The group continued its efforts to rally support and particularly funds for Goldwater, but he remained ambivalent about committing to a presidential bid. Middendorf recalls that White may have misinterpreted Goldwater's intentions at one meeting in early 1963, believing Goldwater had no intention of running; when White reported the news at a meeting Middendorf was unable to attend, one Bob Hughes reportedly stated, "There's only one thing we can do. Let's draft the son-of-a-bitch." On February 17, 1963, the Goldwater for President group was officially reincorporated as the National Draft Goldwater Committee.[8]
The campaign
edit
In the New Hampshire primary, Rockefeller and Goldwater were considered to be the front-runners, but the voters gave a surprising victory to the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Nixon's running mate in 1960 and a former Massachusetts senator. Lodge was a write-in candidate.
Lodge went on to win the Massachusetts and New Jersey primaries before finally deciding that he didn't want the nomination; he subsequently gave a speech in which he announced that he was not a presidential candidate.
Despite his defeat in New Hampshire, Goldwater pressed on, winning the Illinois, Texas, and Indiana primaries with little opposition, and Nebraska's primary after a stiff challenge from a draft-Nixon movement. Goldwater also won a number of state caucuses and gathered even more delegates. Meanwhile, Nelson Rockefeller won the West Virginia and Oregon primaries against Goldwater, and William Scranton won in his home state of Pennsylvania. Both Rockefeller and Scranton also won several state caucuses, mostly in the Northeast.
Prior to the showdown in California, Goldwater made a stop in Georgia, the only state in the South where there was serious enough opposition for concern. A man was selling a drink he called "Gold Water" for 25 cents a can, touting it as an "orange flavored soft drink for conservative tastes". When Goldwater was convinced to taste it at a rally, he exclaimed, "That tastes like piss; I wouldn't drink it with gin!"[9]
The final showdown between Goldwater and Rockefeller was in the California primary. In 1963 Rockefeller had earned unfavorable publicity when he suddenly divorced his wife and soon thereafter remarried a much younger woman. The fact that the woman, Happy Murphy, had also suddenly divorced her husband before marrying Rockefeller led to rumors that Rockefeller had been having an extramarital affair with her. This angered many social conservatives within the GOP; many of whom whispered that Rockefeller was a "wife stealer". In spite of these accusations, Rockefeller led Goldwater in most opinion polls in California, and he appeared headed for victory when his new wife gave birth to a son, Nelson Rockefeller, Jr., a few days before the primary. His son's birth brought the issue of adultery front and center, and Rockefeller suddenly lost ground in the polls. Goldwater won the primary by a narrow 51% - 49% margin, thus eliminating Rockefeller as a serious contender and all but clinching the nomination.
Total popular vote
- Barry Goldwater - 2,267,079 (38.33%)
- Nelson A. Rockefeller - 1,304,204 (22.05%)
- James A. Rhodes - 615,754 (10.41%)
- Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. - 386,661 (6.54%)
- John W. Byrnes - 299,612 (5.07%)
- William W. Scranton - 245,401 (4.15%)
- Margaret Chase Smith - 227.007 (3.84%)
- Richard Nixon - 197,212 (3.33%)
- Unpledged, 173,652 (2.94%)
- Harold Stassen - 114,083 (1.93)
- Other - 58,933 (0.99%)
- Lyndon Johnson (write-in) - 23,406 (0.40%)
- George Romney - 1,955 (0.03%)
The convention
editThe 1964 Republican National Convention at San Francisco's Cow Palace arena was one of the most bitter on record, as the party's moderates and conservatives openly expressed their contempt for each other. Rockefeller was loudly booed when he came to the podium for his speech; in his speech he roundly criticized the party's conservatives, which led many conservatives in the galleries to yell and scream at him. A group of moderates tried to rally behind Scranton to stop Goldwater, but Goldwater's forces easily brushed his challenge aside, and Goldwater was nominated on the first ballot. The presidential tally was as follows:
- Barry Goldwater 883
- William Scranton 214
- Nelson Rockefeller 114
- George Romney 41
- Margaret Chase Smith 27
- Walter Judd 22
- Hiram Fong 5
- Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. 2
The vice-presidential nomination went to little-known Republican Party Chairman William E. Miller, a Congressman from upstate New York. Goldwater stated that he chose Miller simply because "he drives [President] Johnson nuts."
In accepting his nomination, Goldwater uttered his most famous phrase: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." For many GOP moderates, Goldwater's speech was seen as a deliberate insult, and many of these moderates would defect to the Democrats in the fall election.
Notes
editReferences
edit- Donaldson, Gary (2003). Liberalism's Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0765611198.
- Micklethwait, John; Wooldridge, Adrian (2004). The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 1594200203.
- Middendorf, J. William (2006). A Glorious Disaster: Barry Goldwater's Presidential Campaign and the Origins of the Conservative Movement. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465045731.
- Perlstein, Rick (2001). Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Nation Books. ISBN 9781568584126.
- White, Theodore H (1965). The Making of the President, 1964. New York: Atheneum Publishers.
Category:Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries Category:United States presidential election, 1964