The Real Reason Nixon Lost To JFK In 1960

[johnpressman]

I know that I have gone on at length regarding Nixon's misguided choice of Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate in 1960, however, the REAL reason he lost the election was his choice to campaign in all 50 states!

I have read of Nixon having to fly out to Alaska in the last days of the campaign, however, I believe that this 50 state pledge's impact on the campaign goes much deeper.

Presidential elections are decided by states' electoral votes, winning a state by one vote or  by a landslide makes no difference in your margin of victory.  Obviously, opinion polls and past history will reveal that there are states that your candidiate has NO hope of winning and states that are "in the bag".  States that fall into EITHER of these categories do not require any more than a minimal application of your campaign's resources.  To spend time or money in either a state that is solidly in your or your opponent's collumn is a waste.  Presidential candidiates' campaign strategists recognize this.  They identify "battleground " states and direct their campaigns accordingly.  This breaking down of the elction state-by-state and the subsequent decision on which states to allocate resources to has been the centerpiece of every  Presidential nominee's strategy.  Nixon's pledge to visit  all 50 states flys in the face of every previous and subsequent Presidential campaign!

Nixon ran a virtually self-managed campaign in 1960.  His pledge to visit all 50 states sounded good at the Republican Convention.  After all, we had just added the states of Ak and HI, and 50 IS a nice round number, but this bit of grandstanding cost him the election.  It has never been attempted since.  Should he have reneged (given his knee infection that sidelined him for two weeks)  or had he  never made that pledge, concentrating his campaign in the dozen or so "battlegound" states such as CA, MI, IL, TX, NJ, MO, FL, PA. many of which were decided by  VERY small pluralities, rather than spending time in AL, MS. GA or , consequently, ND,SD,NE, etc., he would have won.  More than any other factor, even the televised debates, this 50 state pledge cost Nixon the election. 

[minionofmidas]

Interesting argument. Sort of misses the point that 1960 had a uniquely high number of potential battlegrounds (not all of which ended up tight in the end), and I'm not sure how much Nixon really campaigned in the few remaining states - a token appearance is hardly what I call "campaigning".

[MasterJedi]

There has been talk of voter fraud in Illinois and Michigan which caused JFK to win. (I'm pretty sure it was those two states)

[johnpressman]

I see your point, however, this is a big country and air travel was slower then.  Even token appearances in far flung states in the Rocky Mountains or outside the continental US in AK or HI take up valuable time, resources and energy away from what was already an abbreviated campaign.  Much less to spend precious time visiting the Deep South where Nixon didn't have a ghost of a chance.

Every modern Presidential campaign that I can think of has identified "battleground" states and have concentrated their efforts there.  The "big seven" were traditionally, NY, CA, IL, MI, OH, TX and PA.  Nixon believed he needed three of the seven to win. (He won only two)  Added to the group to make the "big nine" were FL and NJ.  Add VA, WI, MO, KY and TN and you  have 14 states in which to concentrate your campaign.  You might even stop campaigning in NY towards Election Day and spend more time somewhere else. I agree that there were many potential contested states but fourteen is a lot less than 50 and  by freeing the candidiate from the 50 state pledge he gains more flexibility and is able to maximize his efforts.

Nixon sure didn't make that mistake again.  He ran a "cool" campaign in 1968, utilizing scripted TV spots and cutting his time on the hustings way down.

[minionofmidas]

I see your point, however, this is a big country and air travel was slower then.  Even token appearances in far flung states in the Rocky Mountains or outside the continental US in AK or HI take up valuable time, resources and energy away from what was already an abbreviated campaign.  Much less to spend precious time visiting the Deep South where Nixon didn't have a ghost of a chance.

He would have had one if he hadn't had to buy the Rocky wing's quiescence with a decent platform. It's not as if Kennedy was any popular with voters down there either...

[minionofmidas]

Mike Naso will tell you that Ohio is a very rural, conservative, deep southern state.

Honestly though, I have no idea really.

[MasterJedi]

There has been talk of voter fraud in Illinois and Michigan which caused JFK to win. (I'm pretty sure it was those two states)

It was Illinois and Texas, not Michigan.

If someone other than you can back it up I'll believe it, otherwise no.

[johnpressman]

There WAS talk of voter fraud in IL and TX after the 1960 Presidential campaign.  In IL, Mayor Daley held back votes from Cook County (Chicago) until, presumably,  he knew how many votes were necessary to counter the rural and suburban vote for Nixon.  TX vote fraud was harder to pin down, but, after all, this was LBJ's home state with a long history of voting irregularities.  LBJ's senate victory over Coke Stevenson in 1948 was a case in point.  He didn't get the nickname "Landslide Lyndon" for nothing.

Anyway, vote fraud notwithstanding, Ohio, for many years, was considerede a rock-ribbed Republican state.  Cincinatti, was considered a GOP CITY!  Sen. Robert A. Taft, Sen. John Bricker, and Governor and Senator James Rhodes were Republican stalwarts from the 1930s to the 1960s.  It is only lately that Ohio is considered "up for grabs".  JFK, however, did ask Nixon after the election how the GOP won Ohio.
   

[Lincoln Republican]

John, as I stated on Aug 3/07, in another thread, regarding Nixon's decision to campaign in all 50 states, I believe this to be a "crucial aspect" of the campaign, certainly, however, this does not constitute the "real reason " why Nixon lost to JFK in 1960.

Several different circumstances culminated to spell defeat for Nixon in 1960.

Nixon's campaigning in all 50 states was one of these circumstances.

However, others were:

The debates, which boosted Kennedy tremendously and made Nixon look bad on camera.

The selection of Lodge as the running mate, which didn't help Nixon win any states that he would not win with or without Lodge.

The confusing and rather lackluster endorsement of Nixon from President Eisenhower.

The Republicans had been in power for 8 years, and the public was willing to look seriously at the other party this time, unlike in 1952 and 1956 when the Republicans had a tremendously popular war hero as their nominee.

Nixon's lost time on the campaign trail due to exhaustion, as you pointed out.   

Nixon's confusing stance on the Republican's civil rights plank in their 1960 platform.

The inspired or downright lucky choice of LBJ as the running mate by JFK, which helped JFK in several crucial southern states.

All of these circumstances and events worked together to bring victory to JFK and defeat to RMN in 1960.

I do not believe there is or that there can be any one reason why Nixon lost in 1960.  Rather, there are a combintion of reasons.

Even if Nixon had not made this ridiculous promise to campaign in all 50 states and had used his campaign time more wisely in more crucial battle ground areas, given all the other circumstances and events of this election, I firmly believe JFK would still have won.  JFK proved to be a viable, smart, tough, and attractive candidate, and overcame very adroitly the issue of his Catholicism.

[johnpressman]

Tammany Hall, I appreciate your well thought out opinions, and agree with most of them, but  go back and read your last post.  With all of the above, with EVERY possible disadvantage, how could Nixon come within a few thousand votes in several key states of becoming President???   Electoral College notwithstanding, and with a re-evaluation of the totals in AL,  Nixon wins the popular vote!  JFK's margin was the closest in the history of Presidential Elections!

No, I agree with you that any or all of your factors could have caused Nixon's defeat.   My two question are; what single decision, that could have been forseen and reversed, had the greatest impact on Nixon's defeat, and; with all of the factors that you mentioned,  why was the election so close?

As to the first question, I believe that either Nixon's choice of Lodge or his decision to campaign in all 50 states (A REALLY stupid bit of grandstanding, if you think about it),  were his two worst decisions, as to the second, it was Kennedy's Catholicisim that made 1960 a close race.   

The "twin" of this election was 1976.  The same two question apply.     

 

[Lincoln Republican]

John, another factor to throw into this mix would be the vote fixing and outright vote fraud perpetrated by the Daley Democratic machine in Cook County, IL.  Nixon no doubt in actual fact carried Illinois, based on a fair count in that state.  The Democratic ward healers and Daley lackeys must have been working overtime stuffing ballot boxes election night 1960, in order to artificially inflate the Kennedy vote total to the point where Kennedy was able, fraudulently, to carry Illinois and it's crucial 27 electoral votes.

Nixon and his campaign staff believed, no doubt correctly, that Nixon had been ripped off of the Presidency of the United States due to Democratic vote fraud in Illinois and in Texas.  You take Nixon's 219 EV plus Illinois 27 EV plus Texas 24 EV, and what do you get?  Hey, the magic number, 270 EV.

Nixon, instead of pursuing legal avenues, put the interests of the nation against his own political ambitions, and decided not to drag the election through the courts, in order that the nation's business and the new Kennedy administration could get on with the business of running the country and addressing the pressing issues of the day.

In spite of future entanglements that Nixon would become involved in, Richard M. Nixon deserves the respect and gratitude of the entire nation for this very bold, unselfish, and magnanimous decision he made after election 1960.

As to the Vice Presidential pick of Lodge, as we are aware, Nixon tried to get Nelson Rockefeller on the ticket, but Rockefeller turned down the offer.  The fact that Nixon tried to get Rockefeller on the ticket shows just how shrewd a political operator Nixon in fact was, realizing that Rockefeller would add the most to the Republican ticket in 1960.     

I concur with you that if Nixon's loss was to be narrowed to one MAIN factor, it would be his pledge to campaign in all 50 states.  This cost him invaluable campaign time that could have been used productively in the battleground states in the closing stages of the campaign.  That is what Kennedy was doing in the closing stages of the campaign, campaigning all out in the crucial battleground states.

As hard as it is to be believe based on what we know now of Nixon, but it would appear that Nixon was to some extent the victim of the historic 1960 campaign.   


 

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

There has been talk of voter fraud in Illinois and Michigan which caused JFK to win. (I'm pretty sure it was those two states)

There's evidence BOTH Nixon and Kennedy committed degrees of voter fraud in IL, Kennedy's was naturally concentrated in Cook Co. where Nixon's was concentrated in the larger cities in the Central/South of the state to counteract Kennedy's strength in the North. Neither did a very good job - since Kennedy only won the state by 9,000 votes.

[johnpressman]

Nixon, a complex, insecure man, didn't turn down a recount for the good of the country.  The  recount in HI, in fact,  flipped the state from Nixon to JFK, and there was no legal procedure to demand a recount in some of the disputed states.  It would have tied up the decision for months and probably would end up being decided in JFK's favor by the heavily Democratic Senate, anyway.  Look at the mess ONE county in FL caused and how long it took to be resolved in 2000.  Now multiply it by any number of states that each side might contest and cube it by the primitive 1960 technology.  Nixon knew a recount was a recipe for disaster.  If he won, he couldn't govern, with JFK waiting to ambush him in 1964, if he lost, his political future was done for.  He figured that at 47, he still had a bright political future ahead of him.  I don't consider vote fraud as one of the major factors causing Nixon's defeat in 1960.  It's too speculative.  Anyway, I'm looking for decisions that, with the knowledge available at that time,  could have gone the other way.

As for Rocky, it goes to demonstrate the absolute lack of talent in the GOP in 1960 that Nixon, with the nomination in his pocket, had to go begging to Rocky, who had served as Governor for less than two years!  It's interesting to think of Rocky as a "Republican LBJ".  Rocky had NO interest, however,  in running with Nixon and at the time, one would think that LBJ had no interest in paying second fiddle (and a very small fiddle, at that)  to the Kennedys.  Circumstances dictated otherwise.  It just goes to show you that politics makes strange bedfellows.

[Lincoln Republican]

I realize that Nixon was a complex and insecure man, as you say, I have read extensively about him, but you mean to tell me that we can't even attribute a selfless, magnanamous, unselfish, act , putting country above self, to Nixon, not even in 1960?

Surely Nixon deserves the benefit of the doubt in this matter. 

[johnpressman]

There you are THM!  Read this if you want to hear in his own words why Nixon lost the election in 1960 and didn't demand a recount:http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/collections/nixon/nixonday9.html

You may find it of interest as he talks about many other issues in his political life.  But read it closer and you can't ignore his typical self-serving and self-pitying nature.  He pours out bile like a wounded animal.  Politics is for the thick-skinned,  Nixon was not suited to be POTUS in the modern information age.

Nixon explains himself in this soliloquy that I must paraphrase:  "When you are young you often feel bad about yourself.  Maybe you're poor and your clothes don't fit, or maybe you're ugly or maybe just because your skinny, but you tell yourself, "I'll show them, while they are out having fun I'll outwork them" and then, even if you become successful, you can't stop thinking this way.  It's become a part of you."

Or you might like Kissinger's take on Nixon;  "Imagine what a great man he might have been if only someone had loved him". 

[Lincoln Republican]

John, although I am sure nobody will ever really know for certain, you would probably be the one person in the entire world who could make the best assessment of and give a plausible answer to the following question.

In a fair count of actual, valid, votes in 1960, did Nixon ACTUALLY carry Illinois and or Texas?

Your thoughts?

[johnpressman]

I'm more of the belief that Nixon probably carried IL but lost TX.  It's easier to fudge votes in a large, densely-populated city than in sparsley-populated rural areas.  The late returns from election districts in Chicago smacks of vote fraud.  Usually, the count from a state's rural and suburban districts lags behind  the totals from urban election districts.   The common belief is that Mayor Daley held back the returns until he saw Nixon's margins in the downstate regions and knew the totals  he would need to overcome.

Texas, even with a history of vote fraud is harder to pin down.  An interesting read is  the story behnd "Landslide Lyndon's" victory over Coke Stevenson in the 1948 Democratic Senate Primary.  Besides, 40,000 votes is not 7,000.  What about MO, won by JFK with the help of the Pendergast machine in St Louis?   

[gorkay]

I'm sure there was fraud and dirty dealing on both sides. There is in just about every presidential election (and maybe you can delete the "just about"). It only becomes an issue when the race is as close as it was in 1960. The question of whether it swung the election to Kennedy will never be known, because it will never be possible to pin down exactly how many unearned votes he got credit for. Knowing Nixon and the Republicans, I'm sure they were in there trying to steal votes too, and I have a suspicion that this is why Nixon never made an issue of the result-- an investigation would have revaled his underhandedness as well as Kennedy's, and he didn't want to mar his public record and his future chances for public office by having it known.