Why did Goldwater get beat so bad? Folks like LBJ that much?
The daisy ad. Little girl with daisy. Mushroom cloud going off behind her. The left said Goldwater would start a nuclear war with the Soviets.
"Why did Goldwater get beat so bad? Folks like LBJ that much?"
Goldwater said that one decisive factor was that the election was held just eleven and a half months after the Kennedy assasination and the nation was not about to change presidents again. Then too the LBJ campaign was all about carrying out the plans of JFK. Goldwater would have done much better if JFK had to face him.
But also the old media was never more powerful and influential that in 1964. ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, and The Washington Post set the tone.
What I like about Alabama is that when we refer to the landslide of 1964 we are refering to how much Goldwater won by. He swept in a majority Republican congressional delegation in what had been a solid Dem state.
"Why did Goldwater get beat so bad? Folks like LBJ that much?"
Goldwater lost because Johnson ran the infamous "Daisy" commercial in which a little girl picks a daisy as a mushroom cloud appears in the distance implying this would happen if Goldwater's finger was on the nuclear button.
THe democrats turned Goldwater into Dr. Strangelove and frightened the voting populace.
The media also pummeled Goldwater over his memorable line of "Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." in Goldwater's nomination speech.
There was also a Kennedy sympathy vote since he had been assassinated the year before.
Thankfully Goldwater paved the way for Reagan.