A more patient Goldwater.

He didn't want to. In 1960-4, there was a backlash similar to the current Tea Party movement. A centrist Democrat in the White House, the GOP having been run by liberal and centrist Republicans since the FDR era such as Tom Dewey, Rocky, Ike and Nixon, and they thought a conservative Republican would defeat a New Dealer like Lyndon Johnson. That assumption was correct, but not Barry Goldwater. As one observant aide to California Gov. Pat Brown said, "Reagan represents Goldwater's ideas without Goldwater's handicaps."

He was a symbol, and once said privately "I don't think I have the brains to be President". Also on decent terms with JFK. After the '64 election, Goldwater and his team transferred their loyalty to Nixon. Then Nixon became the effective leader of the Republican Party, with the Democratic Civil War erupting into open conflict by early 1967. If Goldwater won the nomination in 1968, then he'd face New Dealer Hubert Humphrey or centrist antiwar Bobby Kennedy in November.
 
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What if Barry Goldwater had waited 1968 for his candidature to President of United States?
A few things. Firstly, you delay "Black Flight" from the GOP to the Democrats following a reaction to the Conservative Goldwater who opposed Civil Rights legislation of the day (the Democrats already had a solid Black base due to the New Deal era, but Goldwater alienated the GOP's solid black base into joining the Democrats). Secondly, it depends on the events to follow 1964. If it involves the same disillusion with Johnson, the establishment, and the war, Goldwater could exploit it to some degree, but I think he'd be seen as old hat and too Conservative regardless, with a Libertarian anti-government image conflicting with the image of the sort of missile-lobbing Goldwater of a Johnson campaign film.

He didn't want to. In 1960-4, there was a backlash similar to the current Tea Party movement.
And it was seen as being just a niche and just as limited and just as radical and extreme, although I'd say the "Teabaggers" are worse or seen as worse on all of those than the Conservative Faction. The Conservative Faction may have been limited to a region (the west) but the Tea folks don't make up much of a percent of the population overall.

A centrist Democrat in the White House, the GOP having been run by liberal and centrist Republicans since the FDR era such as Tom Dewey, Rocky, Ike and Nixon, and they thought a conservative Republican would defeat a New Dealer like Lyndon Johnson. That assumption was correct, but not Barry Goldwater. As one observant aide to California Gov. Pat Brown said, "Reagan represents Goldwater's ideas without Goldwater's handicaps."
I disagree rather much on this point. The fact of the matter was there wasn't much discontent with the order of the day as shown by the fact that Goldwater and the Conservatives were seen as some sort of radical group and were rejected with the ballot come 1964. Liberalism was the mainstream ideology. It took about a decade and a half of disillusion, shattered hope with Nixon and to a degree Carter, and further disillusion before the Conservatives, by what was really a stroke of historical coincidences to create the scenario, could win in 1980 with Ronald Reagan. And even then it wasn't for Reagan and Conservatism, but against Carter. I don't think the return of the Conservatives following the Depression era/Roosevelt era was destined to occur.

Not to mention you couldn't defeat Johnson based both on popularity and the fact that Kennedy had just died.

He was a symbol, and once said privately "I don't think I have the brains to be President". Also on decent terms with JFK. After the '64 election, Goldwater and his team transferred their loyalty to Nixon. Then Nixon became the effective leader of the Republican Party, with the Democratic Civil War erupting into open conflict by early 1967.
Take note that the Goldwaterites really supported Nixon on a false assumption. That being that his anti-Communist rhetoric equated with anti-government rhetoric, and that his "New Federalism" was more than it really was in limiting government.
 
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"New Federalism"- the same idea pushed by the Southern Antichrist ;) (though not until 1966). Besides being delicious irony, the fact was that decentralization to state or local control is not the same as privatization like Goldwater advocated. It shrinks the federal government, but the bureaucracies still exist, although they are no longer in Washington. So you have your cake and eat it too. How Nixonian. :D
 
"New Federalism"- the same idea pushed by the Southern Antichrist ;) (though not until 1966). Besides being delicious irony, the fact was that decentralization to state or local control is not the same as privatization like Goldwater advocated. It shrinks the federal government, but the bureaucracies still exist, although they are no longer in Washington. So you have your cake and eat it too. How Nixonian. :D
And I agree. What I'm saying is the Western Conservatives supported Nixon on the false assumption that his rhetoric represented their ideology, even though he was simply speaking against Communism on one hand and for decentralizing but maintaining the bureaucracy on another, and even though (more glaringly) he was perhaps the last Liberal President in the long run.
I'm not sure whether Nixon intended that or if it was just a happy accident, but it did him well and added a branch to the Nixon Coalition he was attempting to establish which was shattered by Watergate and semi-reorganized by Reagan. But now I'm getting off on a tangent.
 
What if Barry Goldwater had waited 1968 for his candidature to President of United States?

RogueBeaver said:
In 1960-4, there was a backlash similar to the current Tea Party movement

There was an even greater backlash after '64, a truly nationwide & cross-sectional one.

Anyway, let's handwave some family/health crisis for Goldwater during the Camelot era that forces him to abandon his campaign to run against the incumbent White House.

What we now have is (a.) A probable Rockefeller or even Nixon defeat against LBJ in '64, and (b.) A likely re-elected Senator Goldwater who finds that the times suit him very nicely in Johnson's second term, what with the white disgust surrounding urban riots and the emerging anti-war movement.

Goldwater in this scenario has just become a type of early Ronald Reagan. I don't know why he couldn't run, why he couldn't be the candidate of the Southern Strategy which then was coming together within the GOP under Strom Thurmond. If Nixon has won the GOP nomination against the adulterer Rockefeller in the '64 of this timeline, only to lose as badly as Adlai Stevenson circa '52 in the general election, then he (Goldwater) may be seen as the best candidate of the new Republican Right factional alignment, because Ronald Reagan winning election in California in this TL is still as inexperienced at the time of the '68 convention as he would be in OT.

Emperor Norton I said:
Take note that the Goldwaterites really supported Nixon on a false assumption. That being that his anti-Communist rhetoric equated with anti-government rhetoric, and that his "New Federalism" was more than it really was in limiting government.

Beggars can't be chosers, and the Goldwater people and their Southern allies had to take the best anti-Romney, anti-Rockefeller candidate they could.

All that being said, I certainly don't think a Goldwater who runs in '68 can win the nomination as easily as Nixon did IOTL.

It would be ugly, very ugly, at Miami.

And afterwards? On another thread I've spoken of how Reagan getting the nomination in '68 would have led to him dropping his more aggressive rhetoric about Vietnam, if he is to avoid handing the election to Humphery. A Goldwater who lucks out against Romney for the nomination has to do the same thing (assuming Vietnam is exactly the same issue in this timeline).
 
Well, then Goldwater would have to face Hubert or Bobby (butterflies would likely take care of Sirhan) in the general election. If the Dems nominate Bobby, they can have he, their logistical guru, substitute his own highly effective GOTV and fundraising operations for the atrophied DNC's. If they nominate Hubert, Barry can say "LBJ's second term", and the Dems would have no campaign organization worth mentioning as happened IOTL. Humphrey only aired ads periodically because there was no money to pay for them.
 
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What we now have is (a.) A probable Rockefeller or even Nixon defeat against LBJ in '64, and (b.) A likely re-elected Senator Goldwater who finds that the times suit him very nicely in Johnson's second term, what with the white disgust surrounding urban riots and the emerging anti-war movement.
But what about the war?
In 1968 Electors can vote a candidate pro-war?
 
Not a pro-escalation candidate. All three leading candidates IOTL, Nixon, Kennedy (ambiguously) and Humphrey, promoted "Vietnamization" with the eventual goal of peace talks.
 
Not a pro-escalation candidate. All three leading candidates IOTL, Nixon, Kennedy (ambiguously) and Humphrey, promoted "Vietnamization" with the eventual goal of peace talks.
So in 68 or Goldwater or was for the "Vietnamization" or was a sure loser.
 
But Goldwater wasn't, he advocated the use of tactical nukes on the North and extra ground troops to cut the Trail. Eisenhower said that was the only viable military strategy, and Ike was right. The problem was that the political and public will for such a strategy was long gone by 1968, leaving "Vietnamization" the only solution. Even Vietnamization required better equipment than supplied IOTL such as inflight refueling equipment, ECM jammers for SAM evasion, and better planes for VNAF like F-4s, A-7s, or A-4s. If Abrams is chosen over Westy as MACV commander in 1964, LBJ will still have a unified Democratic party and public opinion behind him, then that strategy, along with OTL's COIN can be implemented.
 
louge60 said:
But what about the war?
In 1968 Electors can vote a candidate pro-war?

This is the great challenge for the Republican party forces who would want either Goldwater or Reagan in a 1968 where Nixon is a two time loser.

I believe it's the reason Thurmond backed Nixon in OTL over the more popular Reagan--a stridently pro-war candidate can't win. I've used the analogy of McCain from 2008, yet that doesn't go far enough when looking at America during its nadir in 1968. Yes, Americans then were still willing to support the war effort, but not an unlimited war surge, not after Tet and the demise of LBJ. America had lost more in Vietnam than they ever would with Iraq.

RogueBeaver said:
Well, then Goldwater would have to face Hubert or Bobby (butterflies would likely take care of Sirhan) in the general election. If the Dems nominate Bobby, they can have he, their logistical guru, substitute his own highly effective GOTV and fundraising operations for the atrophied DNC's. If they nominate Hubert, Barry can say "LBJ's second term", and the Dems would have no campaign organization worth mentioning as happened IOTL. Humphrey only aired ads periodically because there was no money to pay for them.

I don't understand how the Democratic organisation in 1968 was 'atrophied'. Sure, popular historiography tells us that '68 was the end of the New Deal coalition, and Humphrey certainly was underfunded in that campaign. But he wasn't landslided; many think he could have pulled off a Truman upset (he won Texas).

If anything I think the Democratic machines (minus the Deep South) were still overwhelmingly dominant, thus Nixon hedged on so many issues, running almost as a Rockefeller Republican.

Now, Goldwater as a warmongering nominee has one advantage over Nixon (possibly even over Reagan). He opposed the Civil- and Voting-Rights reforms of the Great Society.

This should prevent Wallace from running as a 3rd party candidate.
 
Hubert won Texas because LBJ and Connally wanted Hubert to win it and adjusted their GOTV ops accordingly. Remember, Rocky was LBJ's first choice as a successor, not Hubert. Against Goldwater, centrist Dems would stay with their party and the Dem nominee would be given tactical maneuvering room on the war. Here's a potential map...

genusmap.php


(D) Hubert H. Humphrey/Terry Sanford: 305 EV, 52.1%
(R) Barry M. Goldwater/ Gerald R. Ford: 233 EV, 47.5%

Incumbent President: Lyndon Johnson (D)
President-elect: Hubert Humphrey (D)

Or if Bobby is the nominee...

genusmap.php


(D) Robert F. Kennedy/ Terry Sanford: 298 EV, 50.9%
(R) Barry M. Goldwater/ Gerald R. Ford: 240 EV, 48.8%

Incumbent President: Lyndon Johnson (D)
President-elect: Robert Kennedy (D)
 
Hubert won Texas because LBJ and Connally wanted Hubert to win it and adjusted their GOTV ops accordingly. Remember, Rocky was LBJ's first choice as a successor, not Hubert.

HHH won Texas because he was a Democrat supported by Johnson, yes, but remember Humphrey was the true candidate of organised labor in other swing areas. He would win or lose on the Pacific coast, the midwest, and mid Atlantic states on his own (in that respect, God forbid he should choose Connally as his running mate, the last thing he needs is a Leftwing 3rd party challenger).

Rockefeller being LBJ's secretive 'first choice' is insignicant, as Rockefeller was a Republican.

Though Rocky getting the nomination in '68 is the best way to assure a Wallace campaign, and a very strong one at that, possibly with the sole intent of spoiling the election of the Northeatern liberal--I think the New Yorker was always going to suffer a Rightwing backlash, even if Goldwater had never run for president. But that's another matter.

RogueBeaver said:
Against Goldwater, centrist Dems would stay with their party

It would be a mixture of somewhat liberal Republicans shocked by the end of the era of the sensible Eisenhower GOP (perhaps Nixon/Scranton was the sensible ticket in '64, at least in their eyes) and Archie Bunkeresque Northern Democrats. (What's up with the light blue and pink states in your maps?)

BTW, Wallace deciding not to run against this AH '68 Goldwater who supported states' rights in the US senate doesn't mean he wouldn't run against Reagan in all '68 scenarios, IMO. I have a feeling that despite the Gipper's popularity with many conservatives in the Southern GOP, Wallace would still happily brand him as being culturally alien, treachorous, ala his opposition to Nixon in OT '68. Or, five words: nineteen forties ADA Reagan liberalism.
 
Sorry about the map (it shows PV as shades), but as the RFK map shows, the Dems can win without the South. I'd prefer not to think of the consequences for national unity. I think Sanford is the perfect VP for either RFK or HHH in '68: he's a "New South" governor, immune from "traitor" charges (unlike Yarborough), relatively young, and could help with the border states and middle class.
 
Here is how I think a Goldwater v. Humphrey battle would go down, with essentially the same Sociopolitical events happening in '68 as they did IOTL

genusmap.php


Barry Goldwater/William P. Scranton: 277 Electoral Votes
Hubert Humphrey/Ralph Yarborough: 261 Electoral Votes
 
Here is how I think a Goldwater v. Humphrey battle would go down, with essentially the same Sociopolitical events happening in '68 as they did IOTL

genusmap.php


Barry Goldwater/William P. Scranton: 277 Electoral Votes
Hubert Humphrey/Ralph Yarborough: 261 Electoral Votes

Humphrey loses Illinois? Pennsylvania? California?

Any generic Democrat (which people like HHH, RFK, Muskie, Sanford basically were) would have to do something very weird to lose those states yet carry Texas, particularly against someone like Goldwater, a candidate who isn't a generic Republican, not after the last four presidential nominees have been Eisenhower, Eisenhower, Nixon, Nixon (or Rockefeller in '64--though having Nixon run and lose in that year seems like the easiest way to erase him from '68.)
 
No Dem's losing Illinois with Hizzonor in control, the unions in control of PA. Remember, CA only went GOP so often during 1960-92 because Nixon or Reagan often headed the ticket, and would have gone Democratic in '68 without Nixon regardless of whether Hubert or Bobby headed the ticket.
 
A narrow Goldwater win?

I like the premise presented, but as has been indicated by others, the concept still need work.

Suppose that Goldwater takes John Volpe as his running mate, and is able to carry Texas against Humphrey and Sanford. A narrow victory senario seems capable of emerging which would seem rather more like more recent U.S. presidential election maps.

Goldwater (Republican): AL, AK, AZ, AR, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, ND, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WI, WY=270 EVs.

Humphrey (Democratic): CA, CT, DC, HI, Il, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, RI, WA, WV=268 EVs.
 
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