The 1964 Presidential Election

The 1964 Presidential Election

Handing the South to the Republican party was President Johnson’s takeaway from the election that turned out to be a landslide for the increasingly liberal Democratic party. Steeped in discourse surrounding Johnson’s landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Goldwater and his army of conservative Republicans assumed the position of ‘freedom’ and the conservative argument of states’ rights, and shaped his campaign around the very principle, combined with fierce attacks around the future of American defence against the Soviet menace. Johnson’s campaign disregarded the principle of states’ rights and argued for a stronger, more benevolent federal government, declaring a ‘War on Poverty’, and fighting for the marginalised in America. Ultimately, perceived extremities lost out and the politics of the US were remarkably redefined.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was central to the 1964 election. It had passed the House in a fairly bipartisan manner, with a vote resulting in 290-130 being in favour of the act. Opposition came largely from the South, with Alabama governor George Wallace infamously opposing Johnson in the primaries, heading the conservative wing of the party. He wasn’t alone in his thinking. The Senate put up much more of a fight. A 75-day filibuster led by 18 Democratic and 1 Republican Senator slowed down the bill’s passing, with West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd speaking for 14 hours on the bill. Johnson, with the use of spectacular wheeling and dealing, managed to get the two thirds majority to end the debate, and the Senate eventually voted 73-27 in favour of the bill. 21 out of 22 southern Senators voted against the bill. Strom Thurmond, Democratic Senator for South Carolina, jumped ship following the act, in a move imitated by several other southern Democrats. Johnson had unabashedly estranged the party’s southern branch in favour of civil rights.

Johnson’s campaign centred around an image of a sensible President; one who wouldn’t threaten peace with the USSR, and placed himself in the centre of the political spectrum, relentlessly defending civil rights, whilst his campaign showed Goldwater to be extreme, portraying an image of insanity. One of his campaign slogans said, referring to Goldwater: ‘In your guts, you know he’s nuts’, in an effective attempt to personify extremism in his opponent. Johnson promised a ‘government that provides equal opportunity for all’, which essentially sums up the platform he ran on – a charitable federal government that would have eliminated discrimination and inhibition for those marginalised by 100 years of southern oppression. Johnson, rather unsurprisingly, harnessed the black vote, with just 6% of it going to Goldwater – evidently, his crusade against discrimination had handed the black vote to the Democratic party; a gleeful acceptance of protections had played a hugely important role in this process. Clearly, Johnson’s image of moderation, and his rejection of extremities had won over those who rejected extremism the most, and landed him in the oval office for another four years.

Goldwater’s campaign was far more ineffective, in some ways offensive, and ultimately too radical to appeal to America as a whole. His full-scale offensive against the role of the federal government was relentless. Opposition to the Civil Rights Act proved to be useless in winning over moderates and independents, with 56% of independents voting for the Democratic party. This opposition proved to be effective only in winning the support of one group – white, conservative southerners. An infamous election poster depicts a pregnant African-American woman, with the caption: ‘I went all de way wif L.B.J’. Unashamedly racist, such derogatory posters were never going to win moderate independents who were ultimately worried about extremism. Demands for a continuation of an arms buildup in the face of the Soviet menace simply added to his image of political insanity, whilst his ignorance of civil rights led some to portray him as a Nazi; nothing more than a fanatic who shouldn’t be trusted to be anywhere near power. Clearly, this contributed to his abject failure with moderates. His notorious saying: ‘Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice’, practically outed him as an extremist in the eyes of the American public and confined him to the support of southern conservatives; those most concerned with desegregation and all of the protections that Great Society legislation would afford.

The election of 1964 undoubtedly had a profound impact on voting behaviour and the demographic success of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The fallout from the Civil Rights Act led to 8 Democrats switching parties in 1964 and the conservative wing of the Republican party ultimately grew stronger. Far from being imminent, the ‘party switch’ was a far more gradual process. Moderate Richard Nixon won the Republican party nomination in 1968 and 1972, displaying the fact that the centrist wing, who supported civil rights, retained a significant amount of strength. Jimmy Carter, from Georgia, won every southern state in 1976 apart from Virginia in his battle against Gerald Ford. 1980 was the year conservatives in the Republican party began to take hold, attempting to harness the south. Reagan, who was influenced by Goldwater, only lost Carter’s home state of Georgia in the south. 73% of conservatives voted for Reagan, whilst Carter won 60% of the liberal vote. The Republican party clearly pushed for the white conservative vote as a safe haven away from the newly liberal Democratic party, even if offering them a safe political home took 16 years.

Ultimately, the 1964 election and the way it was fought changed American politics. It rejected extremism and chose to accept government as a source of charity, to fight inhibitions that existed in the US since the end of the Civil War. Southern conservatives eventually switched to the Republican party, and as the party has tried to tap into the conservative base in many ways, the south has chosen to accept it, as the party of conservatism, and the Democratic party as the party of harmful liberalism. The Civil Rights Act and the way both candidates chose to fight the election undoubtedly influenced this – Johnson had accepted modern liberalism into his legislative agenda and provided the roots for the Democratic party to be optically the liberal party, and hand the Republicans the south and its conservative voters.

References

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