AHC: Goldwater wins in ‘68

Title. I think it’s a given that Rockefeller must defeat Goldwater in ‘64 for the nomination. Probably can achieve this if we avoid Rockefeller’s divorce scandal. However, would that be enough? I have some questions.

1. Does Goldwater get the nomination in ‘68, or does it still go to Nixon as IOTL?

2. Does Reagan run in the primaries in ‘68 as IOTL, or does this butterfly away with no Goldwater ‘64 run?

3. Could Goldwater get elected, even in 1968 and not 1964? Was America ready for a conservative president this early?

4. What PODs or conditions would allow Goldwater to be seriously competitive in 1968?

5. What would a Goldwater presidency in ‘68 look like? Is it basically a Reagan presidency 12 years earlier? How does Vietnam turn out? How much does the economy change? Do Great Society programs still exist?
 
First and foremost, I think you would need to 1) keep Goldwater from running in 1964, and 2) keep Kennedy alive for two terms. Secondly, I think you would need a post-1963 Kennedy to not only waffle on Civil Rights (I very seriously doubt that the OTL legislation would get passed without L.B.J.'s political acumen) but also get the U.S. embroiled in Vietnam. If domestic unrest gets bad enough, a hard-right Republican platform in 1968 might seem more palatable to the so-called "silent majority" after 8 years of a milquetoast "liberal" Democratic administration that is perceived as letting the country spiral out of control. I know Goldwater took up many social liberal causes in his later years, but I was also under the impression that he was much more onservative in the 1960s, and might react to the aforementioned unrest at least as hard (if not harder) than somebody like Nixon or Reagan.
 
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First and foremost, I think you would need to 1) keep Goldwater from running in 1964, and 2) keep Kennedy alive for two terms. Secondly, I think you would need a post-1963 Kennedy to not only waffle on Civil Rights (I very seriously doubt that the OTL legislation would get passed without L.B.J.'s political acumen) but also get the U.S. embroiled in Vietnam. If domestic unrest gets bad enough, a hard-right Republican platform in 1968 might seem more palatable to the so-called "silent majority" after 8 years of a milquetoast "liberal" Democratic administration that is perceived as letting the country spiral out of control. I know Goldwater took up many "socially liberal" causes in his later years, but I was also under the impression that he was much more "socially conservative" in the 1960s, and might react to something like the Weather Underground just as hard (if not harder) than a guy like Nixon.
Yeah, I think Rocky beating out Goldwater in ‘64 for the Republican nomination is a must. What do you think a Goldwater presidency would look like had he won in 1968?
 
Yeah, I think Rocky beating out Goldwater in ‘64 for the Republican nomination is a must. What do you think a Goldwater presidency would look like had he won in 1968?
It's hard to say. I know he has a reputation as a sort of proto-"Libertarian" for his later criticism(s) of the "Religious Right" in the 1980s and 1990s, but as I said before, he espoused much more conservative views in the 1960s and I could see him cracking down hard on civil discontent if Civil Rights and Vietnam protests are as bad as OTL 1968 (if not worse). "Small government" and "state's rights" are all well and good until we're talking about a potential "radical leftist uprising", especially in a more reactionary 1960s U.S.A.
 
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Goldwater was mostly fine with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, with the exception of not believing in nondiscrimination laws for private businesses. Just have him swallow his pride a bit and vote for it, considering he voted for every Civil Rights bill beforehand. His decision on nondiscrimination was also a product of speaking to justice Rehnquist, so perhaps avoid that conversation and he'll vote for the CRA.

Goldwater in the 60s was more conservative than he would be later. He wasn't fully against the drug war yet, and gay rights and abortion weren't big issues of discussion.


Goldwater would probably work quickly to try to roll back some Great Society legislation. Entitlement reform would be an agenda priority. He could probably get a means-testing of old-age entitlements done, as its both fiscally conservative and somewhat progressive in effect.

Avoiding the budget blowup that occurred from the late 60s onward would have interesting monetary effects. We might not see a TTL version of Nixon Shock if Goldwater holds the line tighter on spending.



Without Goldwater 64, does that mean no Reagan 66?
 
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Yeah, I think Rocky beating out Goldwater in ‘64 for the Republican nomination is a must. What do you think a Goldwater presidency would look like had he won in 1968?

Given that Nixon only just barely won in 1968, and given how terrible a politician that Goldwater was, a Humphrey victory in 1968 is almost certain.
 

bguy

Donor
Given that Nixon only just barely won in 1968, and given how terrible a politician that Goldwater was, a Humphrey victory in 1968 is almost certain.

A Goldwater victory in '68 is difficult but not impossible.

If Goldwater runs then Wallace likely doesn't which means Goldwater will sweep the South. And the Republicans ran really strong in the western states that year, so as long as Goldwater's campaign team can keep him from campaigning on ending farm subsidies then he should do very well in the west as well. (And Goldwater was capable of trimming his ideological sails when necessary. IOTL Milton Friedman circa 1975 talked Goldwater out of advocating to end social security by convincing him to fight for a balanced budget amendment instead.) And Indiana is a traditional Republican state that Goldwater should be able to carry as well. So with the south, most of the west, and Indiana, Goldwater only needs Ohio and Illinois to win.

Ohio will probably be close enough that Goldwater can carry it if he picks an Ohioan as his vice president like Jim Rhodes or Robert Taft Jr. (who presumably would have won his 1964 senate race in a timeline where Goldwater wasn't the Republican presidential nominee that year given how extremely close the race was IOTL even with Goldwater as the head of the Republican ticket.)

Which just leaves Illinois. It's a tough nut for Goldwater to crack, but in a timeline where Goldwater wasn't the Republican presidential nominee in 1964 then there's a good chance that Charles Percy won the Illinois gubernatorial election that year. (It was a pretty close race IOTL even with Goldwater dragging down the Republican ticket that year, so Percy should be able to pull off the win if there is a stronger Republican presidential candidate in '64.) If Percy won in '64 he'll presumably be up for reelection in '68, and if he's been an effective governor that will be a big boost to Republic fortunes in Illinois that year. (Especially since Everett Dirksen is also up for reelection in '68.) Have popular Republican incumbents running for reelection in the Gubernatorial and Senatorial races and assume the DNC convention is still held in Chicago and still ends in riots, and Goldwater just might be able to carry the state.
 
Ohio will probably be close enough that Goldwater can carry it if he picks an Ohioan as his vice president like Jim Rhodes or Robert Taft Jr. (who presumably would have won his 1964 senate race in a timeline where Goldwater wasn't the Republican presidential nominee that year given how extremely close the race was IOTL even with Goldwater as the head of the Republican ticket.)

Goldwater lost Ohio by the largest margin for a Republican in recent history, taking only 37.1% of the vote to Johnson's 62.9%. Obviously fundamentals would be more favorable to Goldwater in 1968, but I don't see how Goldwater could possibly keep it close in a state he lost by over 25%. Especially since Humphrey nearly beat Nixon in Ohio in 1968, losing by only 1.8%. And note that Wallace hurt Humphrey more than he did Nixon in the north. So a lack of a Wallace candidacy would actually help Humphrey in this scenario, and he'd almost certainly defeat Goldwater in Ohio. And given that Ohio has predicted the winner in every presidential election since '64, that isn't good for Goldwater.

It's easy to forget now in retrospect, when Goldwater is to the left of many modern Republicans (at least on social issues), but in his time Goldwater was reviled and feared as a dangerous extremist who joked about nuking the Kremlin and was supported by elements of the KKK. In a time when Americans were terrified of nuclear war and racial violence wracked the country, Goldwater was the last person that most Americans wanted in the White House. There's no reason to think that Humphrey, with Johnson's help, couldn't do to Goldwater in 1968 what LBJ did to him in 1964. A Humphrey victory wouldn't be a landslide, but I imagine he would decisively defeat Goldwater.

Even then, I seriously doubt that Goldwater would defeat Nixon at the 1968 convention. If anything, a Goldwater candidacy makes Nixon's nomination more likely by splitting the conservative vote with Reagan.
 

bguy

Donor
Goldwater lost Ohio by the largest margin for a Republican in recent history, taking only 37.1% of the vote to Johnson's 62.9%. Obviously fundamentals would be more favorable to Goldwater in 1968, but I don't see how Goldwater could possibly keep it close in a state he lost by over 25%. Especially since Humphrey nearly beat Nixon in Ohio in 1968, losing by only 1.8%.

In 1964 Goldwater was running as the nominee of a badly divided party against an incumbent president at a time of peace and prosperity who also had the sympathy factor of having inherited the presidency after an assassination. The situation is radically different in 1968 where it is the Democrats who are badly divided, while the country is mired in an unpopular foreign war and is seeing dramatically rising crime and racial unrest at home.

Moreover, it's been suggested that Goldwater in '64 knew he didn't have a chance to win the election and thus felt free to talk freely about his beliefs. (Leading to things like him describing himself as an extremist in his campaign speech, talking about privatizing the TVA in Tennessee and abolishing farm subsidies in the farm states, etc.) A Goldwater that actually has a chance to win the election is likely to be (somewhat) more guarded in what he says and thus won't be damaged by as many gaffes as he was in his '64 campaign.

And of course Humphrey is much less likely to go for the jugular against Goldwater than LBJ did. (This is after all the man who wouldn't even publicize Nixon trying to sabotage the Paris Peace Accords IOTL, so I really don't see Humphrey allowing anything like the Daisy ad which did so much to paint Goldwater as a dangerous extremist.)

Thus when you combine all these factors Goldwater should run much, much stronger in Ohio in 1968 than he did in 1964.

And note that Wallace hurt Humphrey more than he did Nixon in the north.

What's your source for that? I've seen numbers for Wallace's impact in the southern states but never in the northern ones.

Even then, I seriously doubt that Goldwater would defeat Nixon at the 1968 convention.

I sort of agree with you here. For Goldwater to win the nomination in '68, you probably have to have Nixon end up as the Republican candidate in '64. (Which isn't necessarily that improbable. If Rockefeller wins the California primary in '64, it won't be enough to get him the nomination, but it might be enough to derail Goldwater's candidacy and lead to Nixon being drafted as a compromise candidate.) Once Nixon loses in '64 (his third major loss in 4 years), he is done. No one would take him seriously in '68.


If anything, a Goldwater candidacy makes Nixon's nomination more likely by splitting the conservative vote with Reagan.

Reagan may not even be a factor if Goldwater isn't the GOP nominee in '64. (No Goldwater presidential campaign that year means Reagan doesn't make his national speech that got him so much attention, and thus Reagan may not even run for Governor in '66. Odds are George Christopher is the Governor of California instead.)
 
What's your source for that? I've seen numbers for Wallace's impact in the southern states but never in the northern ones.

USA Today:

"Polls also showed Wallace making inroads among northern union workers, a key Humphrey constituency.

'What made Humphrey upset was that he would go to traditional strongholds or places of support for his campaign … he would go through the shop floors and see Wallace buttons,” said Michael Brenes, a Yale historian and author of an upcoming book on Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey. “He would see posters of Wallace hanging in the office of union leaders. And he and his staffers were baffled and angry by this.'

"The Wallace/LeMay ticket finished with 10 million votes, about 13.5 percent of the vote. Wallace took five southern states – as of 2018 he is the last third-party candidate to win states in the electoral college – and drew votes from both men. Van Dyk said Humphrey knew he lost when traditional Democratic strongholds in New Jersey and Ohio underperformed for them.

'Humphrey was mainly preoccupied with Nixon and the Vietnam issue to bring the liberals home,” he said. “We really did see Wallace as an unpleasant distraction. We should have seen him as more important than that.”

Moreover, it's been suggested that Goldwater in '64 knew he didn't have a chance to win the election and thus felt free to talk freely about his beliefs. (Leading to things like him describing himself as an extremist in his campaign speech, talking about privatizing the TVA in Tennessee and abolishing farm subsidies in the farm states, etc.) A Goldwater that actually has a chance to win the election is likely to be (somewhat) more guarded in what he says and thus won't be damaged by as many gaffes as he was in his '64 campaign.

Suggested by whom?

In 1964 Goldwater was running as the nominee of a badly divided party against an incumbent president at a time of peace and prosperity who also had the sympathy factor of having inherited the presidency after an assassination. The situation is radically different in 1968 where it is the Democrats who are badly divided, while the country is mired in an unpopular foreign war and is seeing dramatically rising crime and racial unrest at home.

And yet in spite of all that Humphrey almost beat Nixon, who was a far stronger candidate than Goldwater. As for Vietnam, Goldwater openly discussed dropping atomic bombs on Vietnam and expanding the war into North Vietnam - both of which were very unpopular positions. And if Goldwater runs on a platform opposed to civil rights legislation, his decreased level of support from black Americans (Nixon took 15% of the black vote, Goldwater wouldn't even be able to get that much) and moderate to liberal Republicans would probably hand Humphrey key Northern states like Illinois and New Jersey.
 
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