1964: JFK versus Goldwater.

[bobloblaw]

I am sure this must have been discussed before?

[bobloblaw]

Maybe something like this? I'm not super familiar with the individual state dynamics at the time, so this is mostly a combination of the 1960 and 64 maps.

Yours looks better. Why would everyone assume that Goldwater sweeps the south? No Civil Rights Bill, No Goldwater opposition to the bill, no Freedom Summer. Goldwater while conservative doesnt come across as a racist. JFK and RFK put pressure on MLK to remain quiet until 1965.

My guess is JFK wins 55-45. But that JFK does better than LBJ in the south and much worse on the great plains and rockie mountains.

[bobloblaw]

Goldwater and JFK are closer ideologically than Nixon and JFK. This one would've been much closer but a Goldwater win. 270's to 260's

?

[bobloblaw]

JFK would push for civil rights, too. With that, Goldwater either gets a "Southern moderate" or a former Democrat like Smathers or somesuch to begin the Southern strategy.

I suspect Johnson would be dumped in 1964 for the same reasons Agnew nearly was in 1972. With him gone, JFK chooses Symington for great foreign policy experience.

He might push it, but he'd get no where with it.

JFK already has foreign policy experience.

Dropping LBJ, means losing TX. The fact he was in Dallas on 11/22/63 means he had no plans top lose TX or drop LBJ

[bobloblaw]

I think the map which bobloblaw constructed. The idea that JFK going to Dallas to bolster his support in Texas in '64, suggests to me that LBJ was staying on the ticket and the fact that Texas was very much on JFK's radar, meant that LBJ was central to JFK's reelection prospects.  Symington he didn't much know about, while LBJ whatever the personal issues were, was easier to keep than dump. Symington wasn't owed anything by JFK, where as LBJ ensured victory for JFK in 1960. There was also the matter of institutional and political memory to consider. Keeping LBJ was also tidier politically and JFK was no fool.

You do understand JFK would have later met with Coke Stevenson?

I suspect Stevenson wanted Kennedy to convince Connally to lead a coup against Johnson. Kennedy's reported planned meeting afterwards with Stevenson is actually one of the few pieces of evidence favoring a Johnson-assassination plot against Kennedy.

crazytown