Does LBJ do better or worse than JFK if he is the 1960 nominee?

Does LBJ do worse than JFK in 1960?

  • Yes

    Votes: 47 79.7%
  • No

    Votes: 11 18.6%
  • No Difference

    Votes: 1 1.7%

  • Total voters
    59
Say if JFK doesn't run for whatever reason and LBJ manages to become the 1960 Democratic nominee. Would he do better or worse than JFK?

On the one hand he lacks JFK charisma and appeal to Catholics and Black voters. On the other hand you can argue that Kennedys' Catholicism ended up hurting him, particularly in the South.

What do you think would of happened? Electoral maps would be welcomed.
 
Overall, I think LBJ probably would've lost to Nixon if he'd been at the top of the ticket in 1960. While he's likely to do better in the south than JFK did, Kennedy still carried the south anyways (save for Mississippi and the 6 faithless electors in Alabama) due primarily to his appeal to African Americans, which as you pointed out, Johnson just wouldn't have. I also think he'd probably do worse in the north unless he had Kennedy as his choice for VP, but even then I don't think he could've won; the energy that Kennedy had just wouldn't have transferred in the same way. I'd likely give Illinois, Deleware, and New Jersey as well as potentially Hawaii and Minnesota, to Nixon, putting the Electoral College somewhere around 277 Nixon, to 260 for Johnson. Close, but still a victory.
 
...Kennedy still carried the south anyways (save for Mississippi and the 6 faithless electors in Alabama) due primarily to his appeal to African Americans, ....

Bolded would be a pretty amazing thing to prove, since African Americans could rarely vote at all in the South in 1960!

African American voters were a bloc to consider in elections before the 1960s, but they were effectively all Northern African Americans, the ones who moved to the big cities in the north where they could vote.

Now you might know some subtle detail I am unaware of that changes the picture, but I think you have it backward--if Kennedy did do better in the South than LBJ would have, it would have to be because Southern "Whites" feared him less, that is, judged he would do less for Southern African Americans than Johnson might.

As far as the South goes, I think maybe it would have been a push between the two--on one hand, Kennedy was not just Northern but a stereotypical ultra-Yankee being from Massachusetts--his ideal Yankiness being offset by being Irish Catholic, but that was hardly a positive resume item among Southern "white" Protestants either--at best they'd tolerate it or ignore it, but quite a lot of anti-Catholicism was a thing among white supremacists generally (never mind the Church's rather miserable track record on anti-racism up to that point, though it would change shortly) and such organizations as the Klan. Whereas of course LBJ was Southern. (I am always puzzled by claims some people make that states like Virginia and Texas are not "really Southern." Texas IMHO is both Southern and Western, I see no contradiction). And Protestant, insofar as he was religious at all. Not just Southern but New Deal populist Southern. But also dead serious about African American civil rights! Oh noes, what to do? Southerners would want neither.

You may be right it would not be a push and Kennedy would be preferred, but if so it would be precisely because they would hope he would be less of a civil rights activist than Johnson was known already to be. And by the way, that judgement would be borne out in reality; as I understand it it was LBJ who went into really high gear on the Democratic platform item of civil rights and compared to Johnson's actions Kennedy was clearly dragging his feet.

In the north, Johnson's known civil rights activism would help hold and expand the African American vote the Democrats had won for the first time with New Deal policies and especially the risks taken by also-at-least-somewhat Southern "white" President Truman. We should remember that prior to the New Deal, the Republicans were much friendlier at least in matters of words (no one really pulling off a lot of favorable deeds since Reconstruction, though Republicans did fewer invidiously hostile deeds compared to say Woodrow Wilson) to African Americans and of course coasted on the Lincoln legacy, lubricated by sporadic attempts at anti-lynching laws always torpedoed by Southern Democrats. In 1960, 1932 was still in widespread living memory. Insofar as Democrats wanted African American votes, Johnson would be their best bet. But being a minority, that was never a major consideration although of course we know in hindsight how slim JFK's margin of victory would be and thus they needed every vote they could get. But I suspect you are right that Kennedy was overall more appealing to northern votes in general--though not to AA ones!

The combined ticket was their best shot, and they took it, and it barely worked.

As to the OP poll, I voted a definite yes to LBJ being overall worse. This is not a judgement on the man, but on the political optics of the day.

And close by repeating--it would not matter in 1960 if LBJ would win the vote of every single AA voter in the South--because there were so very few of them allowed!
 

I may have to take back that first point, yes. I have no actual numbers to support the idea that Kennedy won the south "primarily" due to African American voters there, more just a gut feeling that, as you described him, a "stereotypical ultra-Yankee" wouldn't have even come close in the south without the support of that bloc. Voting or not, they could still organize with and support his campaign; and this might be somewhat myopic, but I imagine such an oppressed and disenfranchised group would be more inclined to stick their necks out for the young, inspiring Irish Catholic from the north than they would be for Johnson (as a matter of optics, regardless of their actual records). However, I also think Johnson would have done better in the south, for that same reason. Fewer African Americans supporting his campaign, less talk of civil rights perhaps, and broader appeal to "traditional" southern Democrats would likely give him the edge over Nixon in the south, widening his margins compared to Kennedy's IOTL. It may have been common knowledge that LBJ was a supporter of civil rights legislation well before he became President, but it was also well known on Capitol Hill that he was a racist (or, at the very least, liked to drop the n-bomb frequently and even referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as "the nigger bill"). The north is a different story, but I still imagine that Kennedy (again, as a matter of optics) had a better chance with African Americans there than did Johnson. Which is precisely why I say that, on the whole, LBJ does worse and ultimately loses to Nixon, which it seems like we agree on.
 
If JFK had never run, I think LBJ could be a strong candidate. However, if JFK ran but was denied the nomination at a brokered convention, I think a lot of Catholic voters would be very bitter, suspecting (rightly) that JFK had been denied the nomination largely on the basis of his Catholicism. Many of them might stay home or vote for Nixon--certainly enough to change the results in big northeastern and Great Lakes states.
 
...just a gut feeling that, as you described him, a "stereotypical ultra-Yankee" wouldn't have even come close in the south without the support of that bloc. Voting or not, they could still organize with and support his campaign; and this might be somewhat myopic, but I imagine such an oppressed and disenfranchised group would be more inclined to stick their necks out for the young, inspiring Irish Catholic from the north than they would be for Johnson (as a matter of optics, regardless of their actual records). However, I also think Johnson would have done better in the south, for that same reason. Fewer African Americans supporting his campaign, less talk of civil rights perhaps, and broader appeal to "traditional" southern Democrats would likely give him the edge over Nixon in the south, widening his margins compared to Kennedy's IOTL. It may have been common knowledge that LBJ was a supporter of civil rights legislation well before he became President, but it was also well known on Capitol Hill that he was a racist (or, at the very least, liked to drop the n-bomb frequently and even referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as "the nigger bill"). The north is a different story, but I still imagine that Kennedy (again, as a matter of optics) had a better chance with African Americans there than did Johnson. Which is precisely why I say that, on the whole, LBJ does worse and ultimately loses to Nixon, which it seems like we agree on.

It seems to me that you are projecting the modern, post-civil rights situation, in which black votes matter because they do vote, and perhaps a segment of the "white" liberal/progressive voters (people like me) are influenced by getting the impression that African-Americans like a certain candidate. Surely such ultra-liberal "whites"* existed in some numbers, but small ones indeed, in 1960, and fewer still in the South, and these would be people of such political engagement that they would judge for themselves. Also being projected is the Saint John image of JFK that he acquired by virtue of assassination.

In fact, I think you've got the relationships with African-American communities backwards. Yes, indeed, as a Southern man of his generation, Johnson used certain words very freely and naturally, and I'm sure it had some sting for African-Americans hearing it...but Harry Truman was the same way. And Truman had done a lot for them, such as ordering the US military integrated. Truman did this because he was outraged by reports of gross injustice perpetuated on African-Americans and emphasized with them as human beings and fellow citizens, and while I've studied LBJ's personal motives less, I imagine it was much the same for him. Did either one see past the "mind-forged manacles" (not a scare quote that, that's from William Blake) fully, to truly recognize completely equal fellow humans and citizens as worthy as himself? Would they not be upset if his daughter were to marry an African-American? (A very rhetorical question in states like Missouri or Texas...it being plainly illegal in either, along with the majority of other US states until Virginia v Loving led to anti-miscegenation laws being struck down throughout the nation in the late 60s--thanks in part to some encouragement of the Loving family by Johnson's administration!)

I'm not pushing simple relativism here. Racism is poisonous and wrong, but you should recognize how deeply pervasive it was in the USA (and horribly, remains so, including among people who happen not to recognize it, and still others who, being called on it, still refuse to see that they are in fact being racist in their reactions; lots of racists swear to high heaven they are not and never have been). A Southern "white" person of the era would probably have the perverse virtue of not doubting that they have been and still were being racist, and either assert 1) it is natural by instinct and all or most "white" people would be whether they admit it or not or 2) it is a product of social training but a necessary and functional one (see Atticus Finch's speech in defense of an accused African-American client in To Kill a Mockingbird for this reasoning), or, if very progressive, 3) it is a deep habit they were raised in, and reinforced by the normal behavior of every other "white" and for that matter African person around them, that they have come to know is not good, but quite heavy, and to go around trying to reverse it deliberately would destroy their ties to their home community.

I'm pretty sure Truman and Johnson were somewhere between 2 and 3, and perhaps had some reservations about just how far equalization of status of "black" and "white" should go, or if they were so insightful as to hope for total integration someday--which in the 1960s Martin Luther King had to describe as a "dream"--they understood, perhaps better than a Northern "white" who was raised to believe themselves free of racial prejudice, how much turmoil and difficulty would be involved, but perhaps also that what might look impossible to a Northerner, "white" or "black," who did not deeply understand Southern society, that indeed such change could come. Because a Southern "white" person who saw through the propaganda of race and recognized, even if only partially, a fellow human being beyond the race veil, would understand very deeply how constructed and artificial the so-called divide really was.

But one mistake they would never make is to suppose themselves free of all prejudices! They'd know they had them, trained reflexes to perceive things a certain way, and that it would take work to see past them.

So--one cannot judge that a person would automatically be more obnoxious to the African American community just because they used some nasty words associated with maintaining racism casually. African Americans, like oppressed people generally, would be observant of nuances. If the person involved is obviously Southern "white," but in fact does things for them that really matter, and makes efforts to be civil and friendly in person, then I think they'd want to know details of just how they use the "n-word" in context before judging whether they are dealing with a two-faced snake or a true ally and friend. I don't know for sure exactly how enthusiastic various African-Americans were about either Truman or Johnson but I think when the chips were down they supported both as much as they could, because deeds matter a lot more than words.

So relativism applies, in context, and appropriately enough, not in an absolute way. Truman and Johnson's example don't give modern "white" people license to follow their bad example; even a modern person who shares their excuses, being raised and immersed in a society that persists in racist imagery and a combination of sustaining old stratifications and complaining bitterly about them not being upheld enough, still knows that civilized standards require them to go farther, in either hoped for sincere reevaluation or at least a feigned civility, today. In 1960 this revolution in civil standards had not yet taken place and for politicians like Truman or Johnson to get too far ahead of the curve would have actually weakened their effectiveness in getting positive and useful, important things done on behalf of the African American community. (This does not bless them, exactly, but it does say that while the more gratifyingly true evolved Southerner friend of the AA community may have been the more alienated person who finally gets how nasty the n-word is, the one who has the traction to get concrete stuff done for them is the one who goes on sounding more conventionally Southern "white.")

And so, I think you probably have the images of Johnson versus Kennedy backwards in the minds of pre-1960 Southern African Americans. Looking at the latter, they see yet another Northern "white" man who doesn't particularly care about their situation one way or the other. He has some pretty words about better integration, but that had become boilerplate campaign rhetoric (outside the South!) since 1940 or so; the Republicans could always claim it, and it became expedient, despite the fears and protests of powerful white supremacist interests, not quite all of them Southern either, for Democrats to counter. And some of those Democrats who adopted the banner of civil rights were deeply sincere, and some of the most rock-solid of the sincere were Southern "whites" like Truman or Johnson. Who could look into Kennedy's heart? Had Kennedy in fact done anything remarkable on behalf of African-Americans in his entire political career, or was he just meeting his obligations to the Northern African-American voters and the fringe of strongly pro-Civil Rights "whites"? Being in a sense an outsider as Catholic would not be perceived as a positive by Southern "blacks" either.

But when they looked at Johnson, they would see and hear a man of a culture closer to the one they had to deal with every day, someone easier for them to evaluate. And he was someone who most definitely had done good work for them.

It is also very odd that you seem to think that AA people campaigning for a candidate would tend to help their victory numbers outside of AA (and perhaps other excluded ethnic) community circles. In fact you seem to acknowledge that visible AA support for a candidate would cost that candidate some significant numbers of votes in the South!

Some of your perceptions might actually apply to Northern African Americans, perhaps. I doubt it; the cultural ties between the two sets of AA people were still very strong, most Northern "blacks" being recent migrants with family ties back to the old Southern districts they were from and certainly deep memories. The urban experience, and the different legal environment, certainly changed perspectives. One apparent "paradox" to a "white" person studying 1960s history is stated along lines of "gee, in the 1960s African Americans gained tremendously relative to their former situation, yet AA communities became known for more violence than ever the more progress was made? What's up with that?" A lot of sage muttering about "revolution of rising expectations" follows, and nowadays perhaps the darker muttering of the beyond-the-pale crowd of pale folks who say "damn it, equality is a sham and what would you expect giving fake "rights" to inferior people who don't deserve it, nothing but trouble follows, we tried to warn everyone" is more heard than before, God help us. But open your eyes to a plain fact--the majority of Civil Rights era reforms were targeted against and effective against the sort of discrimination that existed in the South--specifically, legally enforced, blatantly and openly racist policy, was struck down by law. The state could no longer discriminate in voting, in permitting marriages, in education, and so forth. This did result in tremendous and immediate benefits for the AA population still living in the South, along with eliminating a lot of nasty local regulations scattered in the North as well.

But the form of discrimination taken most often in the North did not rely on legal reinforcement. It could and did take advantage of legal help when it could get it, but in many a state, overt and frank legal discrimination was disrespectable enough that laws would not be passed to enforce segregation. No matter though...white supremacy had and has ways and means of being enforced without the help of law, and even in the face of a zealous moral crusade against it with the law seeking to defuse and dissolve it. Critical masses of "whites" believing themselves entitled to being free of offensive AA presence and influence have ways of letting the latter know they are unwelcome no matter what the law says; customary differential reactions most people don't even notice are being deployed steer "whites" into and people of color out of privileged positions. It is illegal for educators, counselors, bankers, employers, government officials of any kind including police, and so on to advise or support or oppose a person differently based on the color of their skin, but of course not everyone respects that rule and they seek to subvert it consciously--but the most pervasive factor at work is the unconscious, unexamined reflexive reaction. The majority of the "white" people in situational authority who route people's lives to rise or fall in society would honestly swear race was not the determining factor, but the statistics show that it must be.

For these reasons, the Northern model of discrimination is quite different than the overt and blatant old Southern model. The latter being criminalized, the evolved coded way of thinking--most subtly forged mental manacles indeed!--has spread. In 1960 when Jim Crow was under challenge but still standing strong, Northern African Americans might or might not have reacted differently than their Southern counterparts, facing a different form of challenge. I believe that there too, Lyndon Johnson would have on the whole appeared as more their friend than John Kennedy, but I might be mistaken. Northern AA communities would include a lot of people born there who had not had the customs of how to survive encounters with Southern "whites" hammered into them from earliest childhood and would quite naturally resent the airs of such beings who would presume to judge them unto death on the "violation" of most irrationally varying "customs" and laws. Perhaps in the North even migrants who quite well remembered how to placate Southern "whites" would seize the freedom not to have to with glee. Dealing instead with the more insidious Northern form of white supremacy they might rather deal with a Kennedy--or a Nixon!--assuming a foe lies behind the smiling facade. They might discount all the solid work men like Truman and Johnson did as limited tokenism that does nothing to address the fundamental conflict, and figure that in the end, the African American has no "white" friends anyway, and it all relates to power.

But I don't think JFK enjoyed any strong advantage over Johnson in any non-"white" sector.

And in 1960 more than today, only the "white" vote, North or South, really mattered anyway. In such a marginal race as it turned out to be in 1960, every marginal bit turned out to count, and there probably switching African-American votes from Democratic to Republican would have thrown the race to Nixon. But neither candidate would have campaigned with that sector largely in mind! Nor would LBJ.

I think LBJ would lose among "white" voters, and while I can't be sure I think he'd consistently be more respected among non-"white" voters...but these would only in some places be significant, and in those places even very strong support for Johnson would be more than countered by weakening it among "whites."

Again I also say we should avoid looking at Kennedy through modern eyes, because of the rosy filter of sainthood he had bestowed on him by assassination which dazzles and confuses us. We know his Moon Race initiative paid off in a successful moon landing and a bunch more to follow (and one disaster which the crew survived); we know that he came out of the Cuban Missile Crisis having not blown up the world; we know that the successes of the Civil Rights movement, such as they were, reflect glory back on Camelot in general perception. The latter at least is Johnson largely sacrificing himself to make the reforms effective--by retrospectively calling on the blessing of the Sainted Kennedy, he helped overawe heavy skepticism. But in fact it was much more Lyndon's work than John's. But giving Kennedy the credit had the effect of nailing it down, so Johnson promoted Kennedy's image as a civil rights warrior posthumously.

I think the view of Kennedy at the time was a lot less colored and blurred! Still he clearly had a glamor that Johnson lacked. The point here is, we should try to see JFK as he appeared before he was shot rather than project on prior voters some sort of premonition of Kennedy's iconic importance in the future.

------------
* I make it a policy to avoid color terms for people, and if I lapse into doing it to always put "white" in scare quotes because I believe it to be a false category in an essential sense; people mistaking it for an essential, fundamental, natural category perpetuates very much mental mischief, and the categories exist socially speaking for quite nasty reasons that among other things confuse people.
 
In his races in Texas Lyndon Johnson actually campaigned for African-American votes, despite restrictions on them voting (apparently Texas was lax about enforcement), so I think he would have done fine with these voters.

Since the passage of the 25th Amendment, the White House has changed parties exactly every eight years with two exceptions (1980 and 1988) and the presidential party has seen its margins cut after holding the White House pretty much always. Nixon has been quoted in this forum as being somewhat surprised at how close he came given these factors.

Nixon likely would have won the popular vote. He almost won it or even may have won it, depending on how you count the Alabama ballots, against Kennedy and Kennedy had more charisma than Johnson. Johnson probably would have still won the popular votes. The four closest Kennedy states, where he prevailed by less than 2% of the vote, New Mexico, Hawaii, Illinois, and New Jersey. The combined for 50 electoral votes, and Kennedy got 33 more electoral votes than he needed. Illinois alone provided 27 electoral votes, so Johnson could have lost the other three states, carried no Nixon states at all, not gotten the Byrd electors, and still been elected as long as he carried Illinois. And I can't think of any reason why LBJ would have appealed to Midwestern voters less against Nixon than JFK.
 
BTW, LBJ did have the support (against JFK) of at least one prominent African American politcal leader: Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. of Harlem, who preached a strong pro-LBJ sermon at the Abyssinian Baptist Church: "Any Negro who automatically dismisses Lyndon Johnson because of the accident of birth automatically qualifies himself as an immature captive Negro, and a captive of his own prejudices."

https://books.google.com/books?id=rjlFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA223
https://books.google.com/books?id=hlmmDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA224
 
Kennedy won the South because he had a (D) after his name.

Anyway, if we're talking about specific states' electoral votes, lets take a look at New England, and we see that Kennedy won CT (53%), MA (60%), and RI (63%), while Nixon won Vermont (52%), New Hampshire (53%), and Maine (57%). Obviously, Kennedy gets quite a few extra points from MA since he's from there, but he actually did better in RI (RI is both more urban and more Catholic than MA). Meanwhile, Eisenhower had won all of New England solidly, with high 50s. I'm not saying its a sure thing that LBJ would fail to flip all three southern New England states, but I think its a fair possibility - I'd actually put my money on MA being the most likely to flip, absent Kennedy on the ticket.
 
It seems to me that you are projecting the modern, post-civil rights situation, in which black votes matter because they do vote, and perhaps a segment of the "white" liberal/progressive voters (people like me) are influenced by getting the impression that African-Americans like a certain candidate. Surely such ultra-liberal "whites"* existed in some numbers, but small ones indeed, in 1960, and fewer still in the South, and these would be people of such political engagement that they would judge for themselves. Also being projected is the Saint John image of JFK that he acquired by virtue of assassination.

In fact, I think you've got the relationships with African-American communities backwards. Yes, indeed, as a Southern man of his generation, Johnson used certain words very freely and naturally, and I'm sure it had some sting for African-Americans hearing it...but Harry Truman was the same way. And Truman had done a lot for them, such as ordering the US military integrated. Truman did this because he was outraged by reports of gross injustice perpetuated on African-Americans and emphasized with them as human beings and fellow citizens, and while I've studied LBJ's personal motives less, I imagine it was much the same for him. Did either one see past the "mind-forged manacles" (not a scare quote that, that's from William Blake) fully, to truly recognize completely equal fellow humans and citizens as worthy as himself? Would they not be upset if his daughter were to marry an African-American? (A very rhetorical question in states like Missouri or Texas...it being plainly illegal in either, along with the majority of other US states until Virginia v Loving led to anti-miscegenation laws being struck down throughout the nation in the late 60s--thanks in part to some encouragement of the Loving family by Johnson's administration!)

I'm not pushing simple relativism here. Racism is poisonous and wrong, but you should recognize how deeply pervasive it was in the USA (and horribly, remains so, including among people who happen not to recognize it, and still others who, being called on it, still refuse to see that they are in fact being racist in their reactions; lots of racists swear to high heaven they are not and never have been). A Southern "white" person of the era would probably have the perverse virtue of not doubting that they have been and still were being racist, and either assert 1) it is natural by instinct and all or most "white" people would be whether they admit it or not or 2) it is a product of social training but a necessary and functional one (see Atticus Finch's speech in defense of an accused African-American client in To Kill a Mockingbird for this reasoning), or, if very progressive, 3) it is a deep habit they were raised in, and reinforced by the normal behavior of every other "white" and for that matter African person around them, that they have come to know is not good, but quite heavy, and to go around trying to reverse it deliberately would destroy their ties to their home community.

I'm pretty sure Truman and Johnson were somewhere between 2 and 3, and perhaps had some reservations about just how far equalization of status of "black" and "white" should go, or if they were so insightful as to hope for total integration someday--which in the 1960s Martin Luther King had to describe as a "dream"--they understood, perhaps better than a Northern "white" who was raised to believe themselves free of racial prejudice, how much turmoil and difficulty would be involved, but perhaps also that what might look impossible to a Northerner, "white" or "black," who did not deeply understand Southern society, that indeed such change could come. Because a Southern "white" person who saw through the propaganda of race and recognized, even if only partially, a fellow human being beyond the race veil, would understand very deeply how constructed and artificial the so-called divide really was.

But one mistake they would never make is to suppose themselves free of all prejudices! They'd know they had them, trained reflexes to perceive things a certain way, and that it would take work to see past them.

So--one cannot judge that a person would automatically be more obnoxious to the African American community just because they used some nasty words associated with maintaining racism casually. African Americans, like oppressed people generally, would be observant of nuances. If the person involved is obviously Southern "white," but in fact does things for them that really matter, and makes efforts to be civil and friendly in person, then I think they'd want to know details of just how they use the "n-word" in context before judging whether they are dealing with a two-faced snake or a true ally and friend. I don't know for sure exactly how enthusiastic various African-Americans were about either Truman or Johnson but I think when the chips were down they supported both as much as they could, because deeds matter a lot more than words.

So relativism applies, in context, and appropriately enough, not in an absolute way. Truman and Johnson's example don't give modern "white" people license to follow their bad example; even a modern person who shares their excuses, being raised and immersed in a society that persists in racist imagery and a combination of sustaining old stratifications and complaining bitterly about them not being upheld enough, still knows that civilized standards require them to go farther, in either hoped for sincere reevaluation or at least a feigned civility, today. In 1960 this revolution in civil standards had not yet taken place and for politicians like Truman or Johnson to get too far ahead of the curve would have actually weakened their effectiveness in getting positive and useful, important things done on behalf of the African American community. (This does not bless them, exactly, but it does say that while the more gratifyingly true evolved Southerner friend of the AA community may have been the more alienated person who finally gets how nasty the n-word is, the one who has the traction to get concrete stuff done for them is the one who goes on sounding more conventionally Southern "white.")

And so, I think you probably have the images of Johnson versus Kennedy backwards in the minds of pre-1960 Southern African Americans. Looking at the latter, they see yet another Northern "white" man who doesn't particularly care about their situation one way or the other. He has some pretty words about better integration, but that had become boilerplate campaign rhetoric (outside the South!) since 1940 or so; the Republicans could always claim it, and it became expedient, despite the fears and protests of powerful white supremacist interests, not quite all of them Southern either, for Democrats to counter. And some of those Democrats who adopted the banner of civil rights were deeply sincere, and some of the most rock-solid of the sincere were Southern "whites" like Truman or Johnson. Who could look into Kennedy's heart? Had Kennedy in fact done anything remarkable on behalf of African-Americans in his entire political career, or was he just meeting his obligations to the Northern African-American voters and the fringe of strongly pro-Civil Rights "whites"? Being in a sense an outsider as Catholic would not be perceived as a positive by Southern "blacks" either.

But when they looked at Johnson, they would see and hear a man of a culture closer to the one they had to deal with every day, someone easier for them to evaluate. And he was someone who most definitely had done good work for them.

It is also very odd that you seem to think that AA people campaigning for a candidate would tend to help their victory numbers outside of AA (and perhaps other excluded ethnic) community circles. In fact you seem to acknowledge that visible AA support for a candidate would cost that candidate some significant numbers of votes in the South!

Some of your perceptions might actually apply to Northern African Americans, perhaps. I doubt it; the cultural ties between the two sets of AA people were still very strong, most Northern "blacks" being recent migrants with family ties back to the old Southern districts they were from and certainly deep memories. The urban experience, and the different legal environment, certainly changed perspectives. One apparent "paradox" to a "white" person studying 1960s history is stated along lines of "gee, in the 1960s African Americans gained tremendously relative to their former situation, yet AA communities became known for more violence than ever the more progress was made? What's up with that?" A lot of sage muttering about "revolution of rising expectations" follows, and nowadays perhaps the darker muttering of the beyond-the-pale crowd of pale folks who say "damn it, equality is a sham and what would you expect giving fake "rights" to inferior people who don't deserve it, nothing but trouble follows, we tried to warn everyone" is more heard than before, God help us. But open your eyes to a plain fact--the majority of Civil Rights era reforms were targeted against and effective against the sort of discrimination that existed in the South--specifically, legally enforced, blatantly and openly racist policy, was struck down by law. The state could no longer discriminate in voting, in permitting marriages, in education, and so forth. This did result in tremendous and immediate benefits for the AA population still living in the South, along with eliminating a lot of nasty local regulations scattered in the North as well.

But the form of discrimination taken most often in the North did not rely on legal reinforcement. It could and did take advantage of legal help when it could get it, but in many a state, overt and frank legal discrimination was disrespectable enough that laws would not be passed to enforce segregation. No matter though...white supremacy had and has ways and means of being enforced without the help of law, and even in the face of a zealous moral crusade against it with the law seeking to defuse and dissolve it. Critical masses of "whites" believing themselves entitled to being free of offensive AA presence and influence have ways of letting the latter know they are unwelcome no matter what the law says; customary differential reactions most people don't even notice are being deployed steer "whites" into and people of color out of privileged positions. It is illegal for educators, counselors, bankers, employers, government officials of any kind including police, and so on to advise or support or oppose a person differently based on the color of their skin, but of course not everyone respects that rule and they seek to subvert it consciously--but the most pervasive factor at work is the unconscious, unexamined reflexive reaction. The majority of the "white" people in situational authority who route people's lives to rise or fall in society would honestly swear race was not the determining factor, but the statistics show that it must be.

For these reasons, the Northern model of discrimination is quite different than the overt and blatant old Southern model. The latter being criminalized, the evolved coded way of thinking--most subtly forged mental manacles indeed!--has spread. In 1960 when Jim Crow was under challenge but still standing strong, Northern African Americans might or might not have reacted differently than their Southern counterparts, facing a different form of challenge. I believe that there too, Lyndon Johnson would have on the whole appeared as more their friend than John Kennedy, but I might be mistaken. Northern AA communities would include a lot of people born there who had not had the customs of how to survive encounters with Southern "whites" hammered into them from earliest childhood and would quite naturally resent the airs of such beings who would presume to judge them unto death on the "violation" of most irrationally varying "customs" and laws. Perhaps in the North even migrants who quite well remembered how to placate Southern "whites" would seize the freedom not to have to with glee. Dealing instead with the more insidious Northern form of white supremacy they might rather deal with a Kennedy--or a Nixon!--assuming a foe lies behind the smiling facade. They might discount all the solid work men like Truman and Johnson did as limited tokenism that does nothing to address the fundamental conflict, and figure that in the end, the African American has no "white" friends anyway, and it all relates to power.

But I don't think JFK enjoyed any strong advantage over Johnson in any non-"white" sector.

And in 1960 more than today, only the "white" vote, North or South, really mattered anyway. In such a marginal race as it turned out to be in 1960, every marginal bit turned out to count, and there probably switching African-American votes from Democratic to Republican would have thrown the race to Nixon. But neither candidate would have campaigned with that sector largely in mind! Nor would LBJ.

I think LBJ would lose among "white" voters, and while I can't be sure I think he'd consistently be more respected among non-"white" voters...but these would only in some places be significant, and in those places even very strong support for Johnson would be more than countered by weakening it among "whites."

Again I also say we should avoid looking at Kennedy through modern eyes, because of the rosy filter of sainthood he had bestowed on him by assassination which dazzles and confuses us. We know his Moon Race initiative paid off in a successful moon landing and a bunch more to follow (and one disaster which the crew survived); we know that he came out of the Cuban Missile Crisis having not blown up the world; we know that the successes of the Civil Rights movement, such as they were, reflect glory back on Camelot in general perception. The latter at least is Johnson largely sacrificing himself to make the reforms effective--by retrospectively calling on the blessing of the Sainted Kennedy, he helped overawe heavy skepticism. But in fact it was much more Lyndon's work than John's. But giving Kennedy the credit had the effect of nailing it down, so Johnson promoted Kennedy's image as a civil rights warrior posthumously.

I think the view of Kennedy at the time was a lot less colored and blurred! Still he clearly had a glamor that Johnson lacked. The point here is, we should try to see JFK as he appeared before he was shot rather than project on prior voters some sort of premonition of Kennedy's iconic importance in the future.

------------
* I make it a policy to avoid color terms for people, and if I lapse into doing it to always put "white" in scare quotes because I believe it to be a false category in an essential sense; people mistaking it for an essential, fundamental, natural category perpetuates very much mental mischief, and the categories exist socially speaking for quite nasty reasons that among other things confuse people.

I'm not an African American living in the north or the south in the 1960s, so my perspective may very well be inaccurate. But I also don't think i'm putting Kennedy on a pedestal in any sense, either. It's not so much that I think he was seen as the best hope for Civil Rights since Abraham Lincoln, simply that he'd look like the better choice when compared to LBJ. Ironically enough, from where i'm standing, you're doing the exact thing you see me as doing; that is, looking at Johnson as something other than he was. From what I know about the man, I see him more as an ambitious opportunist than he was a true believer in Civil Rights. He spent 20 years in Congress as a reliable member of the Southern Democratic, anti-Civil Rights bloc. His racism went deeper than some folksy affinity for the n-word, even if that racism was just for show. In a situation where LBJ is the nominee in 1960, a well established legislative record that opposes Civil Rights in addition to such an affinity would paint an unflattering picture of the man for African Americans, north and south. I can't imagine the Nixon camp not taking the opportunity to hit him at every turn with his record, making him unlikely to win whatever small number of African American voters existed at that point. I also think that, due to that very fact, 1960 Democratic Presidential nominee Lyndon Johnson is extremely likely to look more like he did in the House than he did in 1957, or how he looked IOTL as President, courting the traditional Southern Democratic base. Why wouldn't he? As ambitious as he was, and as afraid as he was to enter the 1960 race and wind up losing it, I don't see him doing/saying many of the vaguely progressive things that Kennedy did/said; it's too risky a strategy for him. Of course, winning the Presidency is far different from winning a House seat, so maybe he would be bolder than I imagine. But my point here is, Kennedy didn't have a great deal of choice in how he appeared to the electorate. An Irish, a Catholic, a 43 year old northern liberal who came from a hugely wealthy political family. He had little choice other than to try and court African American voters wherever they existed, however limited that courting may have been, as well as those allied with their cause; ultimately, with it being such a marginal race, I think that was central to his victory. With Johnson, I don't see him as really having anywhere to go. His record at that point was mixed to say the least, and the idea that African Americans would see the two men as essentially being the same strikes me as unlikely. Kennedy might be a New England snob, but hey, at least he never voted against anti-lynching protections. In the end, I see Johnson in 1960 as an immensely flawed candidate with little room for growth. He keeps the south, and depending on his running mate he probably takes a handful of northern states, but loses nonetheless precisely because of how he looked at that time; the Texas Democrat who passed "the nigger bill" only after watering it down to *somewhat* appease his traditional base, while still scoring political points in the north.

This all having been said though, I do think your analysis is incredibly insightful and offers some perspective I didn't see before. I just disagree is all!
 
Last edited:
Kennedy still carried the south anyways (save for Mississippi and the 6 faithless electors in Alabama)

Those Alabama electors were not "faithless"; they were unpledged electors slated by the Dixiecrat faction of the Alabama Democratic party. The five Kennedy electors were slated by the national Democrat faction. The list of electors was a "fusion ticket"; a compromise to insure that the Democrats carried Alabama. (Nixon drew 42% of the vote there, easliy enough to carry the state if the Democrats had split.)

There is an odd theoretical consequence of this arrangement: the Democrat vote for President in Alabama was not just for Kennedy, and arguably should not be counted in his national popular vote total. At least not in its entirety: if Kennedy is instead awarded a pro-rated share of those votes (5/11 * 318,303 = 144,603), then his national total drops by 173,700 - and Kennedy's national plurality was only 112,827. Thus Kennedy was a minority President, like Hayes, Harrison, Bush, and Trump.

(I've just noticed that of the five Presidents elected without a plurality of popular votes, three - Adams, Harrison, and Bush - were the son or grandson of a President.)
 
Last edited:
My sense is that if the 1960 presidential election were a head-to-head contest between Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, it would have been:
  1. A barn-burner of the most epic sort, rivaling OTL 2000, 1960, and 1976
  2. An unbelievably low, vituperative, dirty, and nasty campaign. Lyndon Johnson had no scruples about playing dirty; IMO, he would have fired the first shot. That would have prompted Nixon to respond in kind.
Here's a consideration that might help decide things: the South in 1960 was still solid. Lyndon Johnson's accent told southerners he was, to some degree at least, one of them. But all that's going to do is modify the margin of popular victory in most southern states; it'll have no effect on the electoral outcome. On the other hand, Richard Daley made sure the Chicago machine did everything in its power to put Kennedy over the top: Daley understood machine politics, as did Joe Kennedy--and if I recall correctly, Daley was Catholic also, which sure wouldn't have hurt Kennedy's standing with him. Johnson would not have impressed Daley similarly: to be sure, both were Dems but with Johnson, there was that accent that branded him as not one of Daley's type of people. Johnson would have gotten some help from Daley but not as much as Kennedy did.

Oh, one other thing: I recall quotes of the old man saying that if his boy Jack weren't the Dems' nominee, he'd support Nixon. That might well be enough to give Nixon the election, and forge a mind-bending Nixon-Kennedy alliance of convenience.
 
In short - LBJ does not win any states that the dems lost in 1960, and there are good odds that Nixon can take a few that went dem in 1960. Illinois might very well be one of them. IMHO with LBJ at the top, the odds go to Nixon. Other factors include the effect of the JFK-Nixon debates on TV, with LBJ-Nixon debates you don't get the visuals of a young strong (appearing) JFK vs Nixon which helped JFK.
 
Here's a consideration that might help decide things: the South in 1960 was still solid.

???

The "Solid South" broke up in 1948, with four states (AL, LA, MS, SC) bolting to Thurmond. Though arguably it doesn't count, as Thurmond usurped the Democratic ballot position in those states.

But in 1952 Eisenhower carried FL, TN, TX, and VA, with 57 EV out of 128 from ex-Confederate states.

Then in 1952 Eisenhower carried FL, LA, TN, TX, and VA, with 67 EV; over half.

And In OTL 1960, Nixon carried FL, TN, and VA with 33 EV.

IOW, in 1960, three "Southern" states went Republican for the third time in a row, and of the 33 Southern state results in those elections, 12 were R. Also, in 1960, TX went Democrat by only 2%.

Compare to 1880-1944 - 17 elections, 187 results, of which which only 6 were R (5 in 1928).

Lyndon Johnson's accent told southerners he was, to some degree at least, one of them. But all that's going to do is modify the margin of popular victory in most southern states; it'll have no effect on the electoral outcome.

Nixon carried FL by 3%, and VA by 5.4%; Johnson's greater regional appeal might very well flip them. (The margin in TN was 7.1%, which IMO would be safe.) OTOH, Johnson's 'redneck' image could lose him DE (margin 1.6%, 3 EV), HI (0.06%, 3 EV), IL (0.2%, 27 EV), MN (1.4%, 11 EV), NJ (0.8%, 13 EV), and NM (0.8%, 4 EV). (In MO the two effects would be a wash.) That's 61 EV, which flips the election (Nixon 280, Johnson 242, Byrd 15). If Johnson carries FL (10 EV) and VA (12 EV), then it's Nixon 258, Johnson 264, Byrd 15 - assuming that Byrd gets all the EV as in OTL (one was a faithless Nixon elector in OK).

However, if Johnson's "redneck" image is enHbough to flip the 5.4% margin in VA, it's probably enough to flip MI (2.1%, 20 EV) and PA (2.4%, 32 EV) to R, putting Nixon well over the top.


... with Johnson, there was that accent that branded him as not one of Daley's type of people. Johnson would have gotten some help from Daley but not as much as Kennedy did.

I think you overestimate the ethnic/religious factor here. Yes, Kennedy and Daley had that in common. OTOH, they were from very different social classes. Kennedy was a scion of wealth, a Harvard graduate, with an "aristocratic" aura. Daley was a working-class guy - and a hands-in-the-muck political operator. Johnson was very much the same. AFAIK they got on just fine.

In any case - if there was large-scale vote fraud in Chicago in 1960, it was directed not so much at the Presidential election, which Illinois did not decide, as at unseating Cook County State's Attorney Ben Adamowski, who was an immediate threat to the Machine.
 
Last edited:
Didn't old Joe Kennedy buy/steal the election? Who would buy/steal the election for LBJ?

Himself. LBJ played very, very dirty.

To answer the OP, I'd guess:

  • Johnson gains Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and the stray Alabama votes.
  • Nixon gains New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, and the stray Oklahoma vote.
Johnson wins 290-247.

(I think people are underestimating how toxic Catholicism was in certain places in 1960).
 
Oh, one other thing: I recall quotes of the old man saying that if his boy Jack weren't the Dems' nominee, he'd support Nixon. That might well be enough to give Nixon the election, and forge a mind-bending Nixon-Kennedy alliance of convenience.

A Johnson vs Daley backroom battle would be the stuff of gangland warfare.
 
Top