WI Rockefeller beat Goldwater for the Republican nomination?

I recently read that Nelson Rockefeller was in the 1964 Republican primaries. I was wondering: what would happen if Rockefeller won the Republican nomination instead of Goldwater?

How popular would Rockefeller be with the electorate?
Would he have any chance against LBJ?
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Based on everything that happened at the Convention, within the Republican Party there will be a shitstorm and possibly a schism.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Rockefeller's (public) morality issues regarding his divorce, which made him look like a real asshole, means that he likely gets attacked for this and that the Republican party in the future might have issues getting voters who care about that kind of thing, at least for the next two election cycles.

The Conservatives of course will be furious, and the deep south will not go red this time around. But Rockefeller would do better in the North and west.

Basically, he is running against the ghost of Kennedy and will not win, but he may get to 100 EV.
 
Rockefeller's (public) morality issues regarding his divorce, which made him look like a real asshole, means that he likely gets attacked for this and that the Republican party in the future might have issues getting voters who care about that kind of thing, at least for the next two election cycles.

The Conservatives of course will be furious, and the deep south will not go red this time around. But Rockefeller would do better in the North and west.

Basically, he is running against the ghost of Kennedy and will not win, but he may get to 100 EV.

Pretty much what I thought.

Honestly, I was looking for some way to make the GOP less right-wing, and I thought there might be some way to push the Moderate Republicans to the fore.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Pretty much what I thought.

Honestly, I was looking for some way to make the GOP less right-wing, and I thought there might be some way to push the Moderate Republicans to the fore.

Well, the Western wing of the party was always more Conservative, and while Nixon was in my view the last true Liberal Consensus President, he was able to play both sides of the divide.

The best way to make the GOP less right wing is to simply keep the South with the Democrats. Economic populism that was often left wing but social conservatism that was quite right wing was the calling card of the Southern Democrats. Have the Dems not get involved with Social Justice type things post Civil Rights Bill, or have George Wallace be their nominee, and you have a more right wing Democratic party and a Republican party still dominated by the Eastern Establishment.

This will not last forever, but if the Northeast and Rust Belt stays Republican, there is a chance.
 
I don't think there was ever a real chance Rockefeller would win the GOP nomination in 1964--at least not after his remarriage. As I wrote some years ago, "Mores have changed so much that it is hard for us to realize today the depth of the reaction to Rocky's remarriage. (Perlstein writes that 'It was a time, according to Betty Friedan, when it was easier to find an abortionist than a minister willing to marry a divorcé.')" https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/_JrgSpNcJp0/AusEnmEw5hIJ Rockefeller could win the California primary (as he almost did) but that would not have been nearly enough to get him the nomination, and probably not even enough to stop Goldwater.

In that same post, I note that even under the most optimistic scenario for Rockefeller (no remarriage, no Lodge write-in candidacy in NH)

"If there is no Lodge candidacy and if the majority of Lodge's OTL votes go to
Rocky, allowing him to win New Hampshire, it's obviously a boost for Rocky,
and almost certainly means he will win the California primary (which he
almost did even in OTL, despite the remarriage issue) but Goldwater would
still have enormous strengths. Above all, there was his support in the
South. In OTL, of the 278 southern delegates, 271 voted for Goldwater, and
Goldwater's southern coordinator, John Grenier, claimed that 260 of them were
"rock solid", meaning that they would have stayed with Goldwater even had he
lost in California. (Gilder and Chapman, p. 184). Had Rocky not remarried,
and had he won both New Hampshire and California, the numbers for Goldwater
in the South might be a little lower, but not much. Goldwater also had the
advantage that whereas he had virtually unanimous support of delegates in
southern and some western states, even the most "liberal" northeastern states
were not solidly anti-Goldwater. There were at least *some* absolutely
unshakeable Goldwater delegates almost everywhere. Even Massachusetts
contributed five Goldwater delegates--including the man who had been campaign
manager for Robert Welch in the latter's unsuccessful 1950 campaign for
lieutenant governor... "
 
I suspect that denying Goldwater the nomination is easier than getting it for Rockerfella

What about Cabot Lodge?


It may have been Cabot Lodge who saved it for Goldwater.

If I recall my Theodore H White correctly, there was also a sizeable write-in vote for Richard Nixon, who came fourth, but quite a respectable fourth. Had Lodge's name not been entered in NH, then all those voters unhappy with Rocky (because of the divorce) but also with Barry (because he was Barry) might well have switched to Tricky Dick.

Had Nixon won NH he might well have gone on to win the nomination, as the Goldwater people, if not enthusiastic for him, afaik didn't hate him the way they hated Rocky. Ironically, this would have been a disaster for Nixon, as he would surely have lost to LBJ, and a second defeat would have scuppered his chances for 1968.
 
I suspect that denying Goldwater the nomination is easier than getting it for Rockerfella

What about Cabot Lodge?

I think that Lodge, Scranton, Romney, etc. were too liberal for the GOP in 1964. The most likely nominee if Goldwater can be stopped is Nixon. I know it has been argued that Nixon would not want the nomination, that he could see that LBJ was bound to win, but in an old soc.history.what-if post I argued that this was not necessarily the case (I relied heavily on *The Party That Lost Its Head,* written by George Gilder and Bruce Chapman when they were still liberal Republicans...)

***
Nixon's behavior in OTL 1964 does not seem to me to be that of a man who
was convinced that the GOP was sure to lose and would not take the
nomination under any circumstances.

Again to quote Gilder and Chapman (p. 154):

"Many critical observers pointed to evidence during 1963 and 1964 that the
official Nixon posture of aloofness and neutrality was being stretched to
the point of deception. Their evidence suggested that though Nixon might
realize that he could not court the party, that it must court him, he
nonetheless did actively seek to stimulate its ardor directly and
indirectly."

Gilder and Chapman note that Nixon made overtures to the Goldwaterites
before the California primary--which he, like most observers, thought
Rockefeller would win. ("Three days before the California primary, he
privately predicted a Rockefeller victory and told friends he was ready to
heed a call to service."--p. 137) He periodically denounced "stop-
Goldwater" efforts.

Then, after the California primary, with Goldwater the clear front-runner,
Nixon observed in a speech at Detroit that Goldwater was, after all, still
not nominated, and that new opposition could develop at any time. If a
deadlock did develop, and "if the party is unable to settle on another
man," he would willingly accept whatever role the party might ask him to
take. "And if the party should decide on me as its candidate, Mr. Johnson
would know he'd been in a fight." Two days later, at the governors'
conference at Cleveland,

"Nixon attacked Goldwater on the very issues for which--in a unity ploy--
he had defended him two days before in Detroit--the United Nations,
diplomatic relations with the USSR, social security, right-to-work
legislation, TVA. 'Looking to the future of the party,' he declared, 'it
would be a tragedy if Senator Goldwater's views, as previously stated,
were not challenged and repudiated.' (This was the man who shortly after
called Scranton a 'weak man'--because he changed his mind so often!)..."
(pp. 151-2) He then went on to meet with Michigan Governor George Romney,
and Romney claimed that Nixon urged him to run.

"Besides wriggling in and out of other people's ideologies, Nixon went
well beyond his pose of strict aloofness in Nebraska and Oregon by
communicating directly with his managers there. According to an Evans-
Novak account at the time, his neutrality posture also did not prevent him
from attending a strategy conclave of all his main supporters, presided
over by former Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton, on May 30 in New
York's Waldorf Towers. Anticipating a Rockefeller win in California's
primary, Nixon scheduled an eleven-state speaking tour to follow it. The
kickoff was to be a testimonial dinner on Long Island for Congressman
Steven B. Derounian and the guest list featured a half-dozen top
Republican leaders who had not committed themselves to either Goldwater or
Rockefeller. The facts do show that *at the very least* Nixon cooperated
with his supporters and arranged his plans so that he would be within
earshot if the call to duty came."

(My apologies for relying so much on Gilder and Chapman's book; it is both
biased and dated, but it's the only detailed book about 1964 I have with
me right now, and anyway, whatever one thinks of their interpretations,
the *facts* they set forth do indicate that Nixon was at least keeping his
options open in a way that suggests that he did not regard the nomination
as an empty prize.)

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/Ghzn1YByCDA/ww4p3unAnz8J
 
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