JFK Survives, Loses To Goldwater

[MerryPrankster]

I'm reading Almost President: The Men Who Lost The Race But Changed The Nation and in the chapter about Goldwater, it states that Kennedy had a 35 percent approval rating in 1963 in the South and he risked losing the Plains and Mountain states too. TIME magazine said Goldwater could give JFK a close race.

So if Kennedy isn't assassinated and loses to Goldwater, what happens? The book makes him sound like a culture warrior 20-odd years early, with his complaining about pornographic literature and the like. However, the book also states he helped his daughter get an illegal abortion in 1955, which could be really dicey if and when we get Roe vs. Wade.

 

[vultan]

Goldwater may have had some more traditionalist tendencies, but he would actually be considered very libertarian by the modern GOP (ie pro-choice, pro-gay rights, against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", etc).

 

[RogueBeaver]

JFK was cruising in 1963. Booming economy, fairly high approvals (~ 60% in Nov. '63) and relative peace abroad. Goldwater's politics were well outside the postwar consensus' boundaries. Privatizing the TVA, private accounts for Social Security, flat taxation, tactical nukes in Vietnam. Democrats would have plenty of ammo for Depragoguery and caricaturing Goldwater as a reactionary at worst, a believer in "obsolete" economic liberalism at best. Couple that to an ill-disciplined candidate who makes Palinesque remarks like "lobbing one [nuke] into the mens' room of the Kremlin" and "hoax of this administration's Medicare scheme"... yeah. Not much different from the OTL result.

 

[CalBear]

OTL's 1964 Goldwater was utterly unelectable. Facing JFK would make this worse since Kennedy had already faced down the Soviets, which would make Goldwater's rhetoric seem both more over the top dangerous and less credible.

 

[RogueBeaver]

One interesting aspect will be the "debates" both men had arranged before JFK's death. It was a miniature version of McCain's '08 proposal: a series of joint town halls rather than set-piece debates as we know them today. JFK wins them easily on both style and substance.

Abortion: Those stories haven't been verified, but I wouldn't be surprised. Joe would certainly have forced Jack's paramour in question to have an abortion if she was suspected of getting pregnant by him. The real culture warrior in that family was Bobby.

 

[Marky Bunny]

The campaign between Goldwater and Kennedy would not have been so brutal. Kennedy and Goldwater liked each personally away from politics (much in the same vain as Reagan and Tip O'Neill), so Kennedy would have go so negative as Johnson did. Also Goldwater would have picked a different running mate as Golwater himself said he only picked William Miller because "he drives Lyndon nuts"!!!

 

[Readman]

Heh. It's sorta funny seeing all these rosy-optimistic assessments after I have read Stephen Kings latest book. I don't doubt Kennedy would win but we can't tell if it would have been on the scale of Johnsons '64 blowout, and if it is not Kennedy could get hamstrung on Civil Rights....well, maybe you should just read the book

 

[Wolfpaw]

Kennedy won't get Johnson's blowout, but Goldwater still doesn't have a snowball's chance.

 

[Faralis]

And also lets not forget that almost assassinated Presidents always get a heavy boost in popularity ( not like Kennedy wasn´t already very popular, mind you )