1964

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN & ELECTIONS

OVERVIEWS & CHRONOLOGIES: 1964

By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS

OVERVIEW

Election Year: 1964

Election Day Date: November 3, 1964

Winning Ticket: 

• Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Democratic 43,127,041 61.05% 486 90.3%

Losing Ticket(s):

• Barry Goldwater, William Miller, Republican 27,175,754 38.47% 52 9.7%
• Unpledged Elector– 210,732 0.30% 0 0.0%
• Other (+) – – 125,757 0.18% 0 0.0%

Voter Turnout:

• Total VAP 114,090,000
• Total REG 73,750,717
• Total Vote 70,639,284
• %VAP 61.9%
• %REG 95.8%

Central Forums/Campaign Methods for Addressing Voters:

Whistle-stop tour, speaking tour, radio, television, ads.

Election Law/Campaign Finance Changes:

Incumbent President and Vice President on Election Day:

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democratic, 1961-1963

Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democratic 1963-1969

Population: 1964: 191,927,000

Nominal GDP (billions of dollars): $663.6 Real GDP (billions of 2005 dollars): $3,392.3 GDP Deflator (index 2005=100%): 19.56 Population (in thousands): 191,927
Nominal GDP per capita (current dollars): $3,458 Real GDP per capita (year 2005 dollars): $17,675

Number of Daily Newspapers: 1,763 (1960)

Average Daily Circulation: 58,882,000 (1960)

Households with:

• Radio 48,504,000 (1960)
• Television 46,312,000 (1960)  

Method of Choosing Electors: Popular vote

Method of Choosing Nominees:

• National party convention;
• Presidential preference primaries

Central Issues: Civil rights; racial justice; Civil Rights Act (June 1964); war on poverty; Great Society.

Leading Candidates (Nomination/Primaries):

Democratic candidates

• Lyndon B. Johnson, U.S. President from Texas
• George Wallace, governor of Alabama

“Favorite-son” candidates:

• Daniel B. Brewster, U.S. senator from Maryland
• Pat Brown, governor of California
• Albert S. Porter of Ohio
• Jennings Randolph, U.S. senator from West Virginia
• John W. Reynolds, governor of Wisconsin
• Matthew E. Welsh, governor of Indiana
• Sam Yorty, mayor of Los Angeles, California

Republican candidates

• John W. Byrnes, U.S. representative from Wisconsin
• Hiram Fong, U.S. senator from Hawaii
• Barry M. Goldwater, U.S. senator from Arizona
• Walter H. Judd, former U.S. representative from Minnesota
• Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., former U.S. senator and 1960 vice-presidential nominee from Massachusetts
• James A. Rhodes, Governor of Ohio
• Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor, and candidate for the 1960 nomination from New York
• William W. Scranton, Governor of Pennsylvania
• Margaret Chase Smith, U.S. senator from Maine
• John W. Steffey, State Senator from Maryland
• Harold E. Stassen, former Governor and candidate for the 1944, 1948 and 1952 nominations from Pennsylvania

Main Controversies (Nomination/Primaries):

Democratic Party:

• Although Lyndon Johnson was practically a lock-in for the Presidential nomination, he wanted control over the convention and civil rights; the issue was causing dissension within the party.
• Segregationist Governor of Alabama, George Wallace ran against Johnson in the primaries, faired well did well in Maryland, Indiana, Wisconsin against favorite son candidates.
• Favorite-sons won their states’ primaries. Sam Yorty, Mayor of Los Angeles was the exception he lost the California primary to Brown.

Republican Party:

• First time in twelve years the field was open; New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller now represented the party’s Eastern moderates and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater the conservative wing of the party; Rockefeller led all Republicans by 17 percentage points in an April 1963 Gallup Poll.

Campaign Innovations (Nomination/Primaries):

Major Personalities (Nomination/Primaries):

• Democratic: Robert Kennedy; Hubert Humphrey; Walter Reuther; Roy Wilkins; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Bayard Rustin.
• Republican: F. Clifton White; Nelson Rockefeller; Margarita “Happy” Murphy; Prescott Bush (Senator of Connecticut); Henry Cabot Lodge; William Scranton.

Turning Points (Nomination/Primaries):

Democratic Party:

• John F. Kennedy still popular was assassinated in November 1963, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson accented to the presidency and now the favorite candidate for the Democratic nomination.
• Alabama Governor George Wallace gave the first demonstration of white backlash with a surprisingly strong showing against three favorite sons in the North.

Republican Party:

• 1961, Conservatives no longer wanted a Republican Presidential candidate that supported the New Deal a group led by F. Clifton White, former national chairman of the Young Republicans, met in Chicago set on nominating a conservative in 1964, their candidate of choice was Barry Goldwater.
• 1963, Texas state party chairman Peter O’Donnell formation of the  National Draft Goldwater Committee.
• In May 1963, Rockefeller remarried to a divorcee which upset public support for him as a candidate, in the next gallop poll Goldwater assumed the lead by 5 points.
• Goldwater considered dropping out of the race for a while but finally gave his supporters the go-ahead; a moratorium on Republican campaigning after the Kennedy assassination.
• Henry Cabot Lodge won the New Hampshire primary over Rockefeller and Goldwater as a write-in, but he lost Oregan to Rockefeller, and then withdrew from the campaign, supporting Rockefeller for the nomination prior to the California primary.
• Goldwater won the California primary by 51% to 49%, three days after Rockefeller’s wife gave birth, reminding the electorate of the adultery issues that plagued the Rockefeller campaign in 1963.
• Moderates tried to nominate William Scranton instead of the Conservative Goldwater.
• Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey primaries.
• Barry Goldwater: Illinois, Texas, Indiana; Nebraska (draft-Nixon movement).
• Nelson Rockefeller: West Virginia, Oregon, several Northeastern state caucuses.
• William Scranton: several Northeastern state caucuses, Pennsylvania.

Primaries Quotations:

• “Have we come to the point in our life as a nation where the governor of a great state- one who perhaps aspires to the nomination for president of the United States- can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a young mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the governor?” Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut

Primaries:

• Democratic 17, 45.7 % delegates
• Republican 17, 45.6% delegates

Primaries Results:

Democratic Party: Jul 01, 1964

• Edmund G. “Pat” Brown: 1,693,813, 27.26%
• Lyndon Baines Johnson(I): 1,106,999, 17.81%
• Samuel W. Yorty: 798,431, 12.85%
• George Corley Wallace: 672,984, 10.83%
• John W. Reynolds: 522,405, 8.41%
• Albert S. Porter: 493,619, 7.94%
• Matthew Empson Welsh: 376,023, 6.05%
• Daniel B. Brewster: 267,106, 4.30%
• Jennings Randolph: 131,432, 2.12%
• Unpledged: 81,614, 1.31%
• Robert Francis Kennedy: 36,258, 0.58%

Republican Party: Jul 01, 1964

• Barry Morris Goldwater: 2,267,079, 38.33%
• Nelson A. Rockefeller: 1,304,204, 22.05%
• James A. Rhodes: 615,754, 10.41%
• Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.: 386,661, 6.54%
• John W. Byrnes: 299,612, 5.07%
• William W. Scranton: 245,401, 4.15%
• Margaret Chase Smith: 227,007, 3.84%
• Richard Milhous Nixon: 197,212, 3.33%
• Unpledged: 173,652, 2.94%
• Harold Edward Stassen: 114,083, 1.93%

Conventions (Dates & Locations):

• Democratic National Convention: August 24-27, 1964, Convention Center; Atlantic City, John William McCormack (Massachusetts), Acclamation, Lyndon B. Johnson (Texas), Hubert Humphrey (Minnesota)
• Republican National Convention: July 13-16, 1964, Cow Palace; San Francisco, 1^st ballot, Barry M. Goldwater (Arizona) William E. Miller, (New York)

Convention Turning Points:

Democratic National Convention:

• The integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) claimed the delegate seats for Mississippi in protest, because of the election of delegates by Jim Crow primary. Although the Liberals in the party wanted to equally divide the delegate seats, Johnson was concerned about losing the Southern vote entirely.
• A compromise with civil rights leaders; the MFDP would have two seats and the Mississippi delegate was required to support the party’s ticket, and no further convention would accept delegates where there was a Jim Crow primary.
• White delegates from Mississippi and Alabama refused the compromise and left the convention. (Johnson carried the South as a whole in the election, but lost Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina.)
• Robert Kennedy tried to force Johnson to accept him as his running mate, which prompted Johnson to announce he would not choose any of his cabinet members as running mates; prompting Kennedy to resign from his post as Attorney General and for the Senate from New York; Johnson remained concerned Kennedy would use his speaking slot at the convention to gain support from the delegates to nominate him for Vice-President, to resolve the issue Johnson scheduled Kennedy on the last night after the Vice-President nomination was decided.
• The only suspense at the convention centered on his choice of a running-mate Johnson chose liberal and civil rights supporter Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey.

Republican Convention:

• Bitter, animosity between the moderate and conservative factions.
• Goldwater conservatives dominated the convention; attacked the moderates including Nelson Rockefeller during his speech;
• Goldwater chose William Miller, New York Congressman,  with a similar view as his running-mate “One reason I chose Miller is that he drives Johnson nuts.”
• Miller was the first Catholic nominated on the Republican ticket.
• Moderate faction defected to the Democrats for the fall election.

Number of Ballots to Choose Nominees:

Republican Party Nomination:

Presidential 1^st ballot

• Barry Goldwater 883
• William Scranton 214
• Nelson Rockefeller 114
• George Romney 41
• Margaret Chase Smith 27
• Walter Judd 22
• Hiram Fong 5
• Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. 2

Convention Keynote Speaker:

Nominating Speech Speakers (President):

Party Platforms:

• Democratic Party: moderate tone, condemned right and left extremism; praised Kennedy-Johnson administration accomplishments.
• Republican Party: strong stance against Communist regimes; smaller federal government role; individual rights.

Convention Quotations:

• “This is still a free country, ladies, and gentlemen. These things have no place in America. But I can personally testify to their existence. And so can countless others who have also experienced anonymous midnight and early morning telephone calls, unsigned threatening letters, smear, and hate literature, strong-arm and goon tactics, bomb threats and bombings, infiltration and take-over of established political organizations by Communist and Nazi methods. Some of you don’t like to hear it, ladies and gentlemen, but it’s the truth.” Nelson Rockefeller about the attacks he was receiving from conservative during his speech at the 1964 Republican National convention

General Election Controversies/Issues:

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; bombing North Vietnam.
• Goldwater charges of extremism.
• South’s opposition to Johnson’s civil rights position.
• “quotemanship”

Campaign Innovations (General Election):

• The first time the wife of a candidate or First Lady went on a stumping tour for her husband’s Presidential campaign

Major Personalities (General Election): Walter Jenkins; Lady Bird Johnson;

Campaign Tactics:

Republican Party:

• Emphasis on conservative principles
• “Southern strategy”: carry the Southern states, because of his position on states’ rights, and refusal to endorse civil-rights legislation, as well as Northern “white backlash” vote, those tired of the riots in black neighborhoods in the large Eastern cities.
• Goldwater spoke too much off-the-cuff, never altered his speech to match the constituency he was speaking to, ended up with contradictions.

Democratic Party:

• Johnson focused on being Chief Magistrate, getting his accomplishments in the newspaper headlines.
• Emphasis on “consensus” continuing John F. Kennedy’s programs, policies.
• Whistle-stop tour by the First Lady of the South States to gain support for Civil Rights; maintain the Democratic South.
• Put Goldwater on the defensive
• End of September Johnson embarked on a forty-two-day stumping tour; 60,000 miles, two hundred speeches, motorcade, impromptu speeches through a handheld bullhorn, shake hands.

Turning Points (General Election):

• Goldwater started off the campaign sounding too extreme. Later in the campaign, Goldwater tried to moderate his messages, and reassure voters supported the U. N., Eisenhower’s foreign policy; did not want a war Russia, extending Social Security, conscientiously administer civil rights, too late, an impression had already been on voters.
• Goldwater focuses on corruption in Washington, and “socialism.” He accused on Johnson of amassing a fortune through devious means, questioned his association with Robert G. (“Bobby”) Baker, Billie Sol Estes, and Matt McCloskey all accused (illegal?) business dealings. Johnson disclosed an audit of his financial holdings.
• “You’re another” contest, “a kook and a crook.”
• End of September Johnson embarked on a forty-two-day stumping tour; 60,000 miles, two hundred speeches, motorcade, impromptu speeches through a handheld bullhorn, shake hands.
• Johnson perceived as the “Great Wheeler Dealer.”
• On October 14, LBJ aide Walter Jenkins was arrested for disorderly conduct in a Washington YMCA under compromising circumstances. Jenkins, who held the position of special assistant to the president, was not only a close and loyal staffer but a family friend. Johnson campaign advisors believed that the incident would cause problems for Johnson’s campaign and that Johnson should distance himself from Jenkins, and campaign with his wife and daughters during the last two weeks of the campaign. Johnson immediately released a statement that Jenkins had resigned from his position, but did not clarify what the position was. However, Johnson did not personally distance himself from Jenkins, offering Jenkins a position as the manager of the Johnson ranch, while the First Lady issued a statement.
• Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate believed that the arrest gave him the ammunition he needed to make the case of moral decline. Although no medical excuse could be found to cover the Jenkins story, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover decided to intervene, claiming that Barry Goldwater and his campaign had actually set-up Jenkins as part of a “Republican plot” to bring down Johnson. Hoover made this connection because Jenkins had served in the same Air Force unit which was commanded by Goldwater. In order to legitimize his claims, Hoover conducted an elaborate investigation.
• The Jenkins issue, however, disappeared from the newspapers within days and was eclipsed by foreign policy issues. Communist China successfully tested its first nuclear device and the Moscow politburo overthrew Nikita Khrushchev. The Jenkins issue became irrelevant in the campaign.
• October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan’s “A Time For Choosing”, Televised Campaign Address for Goldwater Presidential Campaign.

Popular Campaign Slogans:

Democratic Party:

• “Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The Stakes Are Too High for You to Stay at Home”
• “Goldwater in 64, Hot-Water in 65”
• “LBJ for the USA”
• “Vote LBJ the Liberal Way”
• “Yes — Extreme Right.”
• “In Your Heart You Know He Might,” “In Your Head You Know He’s Wrong,” and “In Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts.”

Republican Party:

• “In Your Heart You Know He’s Right”
• “We Need a Space Age Candidate – Go Goldwater in ’64!”
• “a choice, not an echo”;
• “yearn for a return to Conservative principles”

Campaign Song:

• Democratic Party: Lyndon B. Johnson: “Hello Lyndon” (Jerry Herman)
• Republican Party: Barry Goldwater: “Go with Goldwater” (Tom McDonnell and Otis Clements)

Influential Campaign Appeals or Ads:

Democratic Party:

• “Peace Little Girl (Daisy)” aired once, during the NBC Movie of the Week on September 7, 1964. A young girl is seen picking daisies when the narrating voices count down to zero the images of the girl dissolves into an image of a nuclear mushroom. Demonstrated the danger of putting Goldwater in charge of the nuclear button; Republican Party objected the ad never aired again.
• Withdrawn commercial a little girl with an ice cream cone poisoned with strontium-90, because “there’s a man who wants to be President of the United States” voted in 1962 against the nuclear test-ban treaty with Russia.
• “Goldwater for Halloween” “Vote for Goldwater and Go to War.”

Republican Party:

• Defensive ads; harking back to Eisenhower’s answers America; talking head commercials.
• Use of half-hour broadcasts speeches for fundraising appeals, most notably Ronald Reagan’s “the Speech.”

Money Spent (Each Campaign/Party/Overall):

Defining Quotation (Winning Candidate):

• “We don’t want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. We don’t want to… get tied down in a land war in Asia.” Lyndon B. Johnson about Goldwater in the Fall

Defining Quotation (Losing Candidate):

• “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, July 16, 1964
• “I wanted to educate the American people to lose some of their fear of the word ‘nuclear.’ When you say ‘nuclear,’ all the American people see is a mushroom cloud. But for military purposes, it’s just enough firepower to get the job done.” Barry Goldwater
• “We have gotten where we are not because of government, but in spite of government.” Barry Goldwater

Campaign Quotations:

• “This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.  You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well, I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down—[up] man’s old—old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.” Ronald Reagan, “A Time For Choosing”, Televised Campaign Address for Goldwater Presidential Campaign, October 27, 1964

• “My heart is aching today for someone who has reached the point of exhaustion in dedicated service to his country. Walter Jenkins has been carrying incredible hours and burdens since President Kennedy’s assassination. He is now receiving the medical attention that he needs.” Lady Bird Johnson statement about Walter Jenkins

Significant books: 

• Donaldson, Gary. Liberalism’s Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2003.
• Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.

Significant Books from the Campaign:

• Arthur Frommer Goldwater from A to Z, 113 pages of Goldwater pronouncements above more than a hundred public issues, confused, contradictory, disturbing about nuclear war.
• Goldwater, Barry Morris. The Conscience of a Conservative. MacFadden Capitol Hill Book. Victor Pub. Co., 1960.
• White, Theodore H. The Making of the President, 1964. New York: Atheneum Pub, 1969.

Lasting Legacy of Campaign:

• Johnson achieved the fifth-largest margin of victory with 22.6 percentage point (after the margins of 1920, 1924, 1936, and 1972 elections).
• Johnson won 61.1% of the popular vote, highest popular-vote percentage since 1820.
• No post-1964 Democratic candidate has managed to better LBJ’s 1964 electoral result.
• Goldwater as a pioneer in the modern conservative movement.

 

CHRONOLOGY

• December 1961: Goldwater declares in a news conference “sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.”
• 1961: Conservatives no longer wanted a Republican Presidential candidate that supported the New Deal a group led by F. Clifton White, former national chairman of the Young Republicans, met in Chicago set on nominating a conservative in 1964, their candidate of choice was Barry Goldwater.
• 1963: Texas state party chairman Peter O’Donnell forms the National Draft Goldwater Committee.
• April 1963: First time in twelve years, the Republican Party field is open. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller now represents the party’s Eastern moderates and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater the conservative wing of the party; Rockefeller led all Republicans by 17 percentage points in an April 1963 Gallup Poll.
• May 1963: Republican Nelson Rockefeller remarries to a divorcee, which upsets public support for him as a candidate; in the next gallop poll, Goldwater assumes the lead by 5 points.
• July 19, 1963: Stassen announces he will enter the Republican primaries.
• August 27, 1963: Prohibition Party Convention convenes at the Pick Congress Hotel in Chicago Illinois with 72 delegates representing 19 states. The convention nominates E. Harold Munn (Mississippi) for President and Mark Shaw (Massachusetts) for Vice President.
• November 22, 1963: Popular President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Lyndon Baines Johnson succeeds as President; now the favorite candidate for the Democratic nomination.
• November 24, 1963: “Jack Ruby shoots and kills Lee Harvey Oswald.”
• November 25, 1963: “Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.”
• November 1963: Goldwater considers dropping out of the race for a while, but finally gave his supporters the go-ahead; a moratorium on Republican campaigning after the Kennedy assassination.
• January 3, 1964: Senator Barry Goldwater announces that he will seek the Republican Presidential nomination.
• January 8, 1964: “President Lyndon Johnson declares a “War on Poverty” in the United States in his first State-of-the-Union address.”
• March 1964: George Gallup “the President is doing a fantastic job. We all thought that the honeymoon would last 30–45 days and then the polls would drop off sharply. But this has not been the case. The President still has a fantastically high national rating, and it looks like that rating is going to continue.”
• 1964: Segregationist Governor of Alabama, George Wallace runs against Johnson in the primaries, fairs well in Maryland, Indiana, and Wisconsin against favorite son candidates.
• 1964: Favorite sons win their states’ primaries. Sam Yorty, Mayor of Los Angeles was the exception he lost the California primary to Brown.
• March 10, 1964: Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador to Vietnam wins the New Hampshire primary as a write-in over Rockefeller and Goldwater.
• April 12, 1964: “The surprising total of over 260,000 votes — a fourth of that for both parties — polled in Wisconsin’s Presidential primary by Gov. George Wallace of Alabama in a civil rights challenge to the Administration last week caused wide comment.”
• May 2, 1964: “Senator Barry Goldwater receives more than 75% of the votes in the Texas Republican Presidential primary.”
• May 14, 1964?: Lodge loses Oregon Primary to Rockefeller and then withdraws from the campaign.
• May 19, 1964: Lodge announces that he is supporting Rockefeller for the nomination prior to the California primary. Lodge is forced into supporting Rockefeller.
• May 22, 1964: “Governor Rockefeller said that if Senator Barry Goldwater wins the California primary there would not be sufficient moderate strength to stop him at the Republican National Convention.”
• June 2, 1964: Goldwater wins the California primary by 51% to 49%, three days after Rockefeller’s wife gave birth, reminding the electorate of the adultery issues that plagued the Rockefeller campaign in 1963.
• Moderate Republicans try to get William Scranton nominated instead of the Conservative Goldwater.
• Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey primaries.
• Barry Goldwater: Illinois, Texas, Indiana; Nebraska (draft-Nixon movement).
• Nelson Rockefeller: West Virginia, Oregon, several Northeastern state caucuses.
• William Scranton: several Northeastern state caucuses, Pennsylvania
• ?May 22, 1964: Johnson gives a speech at the University of Michigan, announces his Great Society program.
• July 2, 1964: “Johnson signs The Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
• June 1964: Johnson had a 74 percent approval rating and a 77 to 18 percent margin over Goldwater.
• July 19, 1964: Governor George Wallace withdraws from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Alabama Governor George Wallace gives the first demonstration of white backlash with a surprisingly strong showing against three favorite sons in the North.
• July 13-16, 1964: Republican National Convention convenes at Cow Palace in San Francisco, California and nominates on the 1^st ballot, Barry M. Goldwater (Arizona) for President and William E. Miller, (New York) for Vice President.  There is bitter, animosity between the moderate and conservative factions, Goldwater conservatives dominate the convention, and attacks the moderates including Nelson Rockefeller during his speech. Goldwater chooses William Miller, a New York Congressman with similar views as his running-mate; “One reason I chose Miller is that he drives Johnson nuts.” Miller is the first Catholic nominated on the Republican ticket. The moderate faction of the Republican Party defects to the Democrats for the fall election, “Republicans for Johnson.”
• July 16, 1964: Barry Goldwater gives an address accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
• August 8, 1964: Universal Party Convention convenes in Oakland California, and nominates Kirby J. Hensley (California) for President, and John O. Hopkins (Iowa) for Vice President.
• August 24-27, 1964: Democratic National Convention convenes at Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. John William McCormack (Massachusetts) serves as chairman. The convention nominates by acclamation Lyndon B. Johnson (Texas) for President and Hubert Humphrey (Minnesota) for Vice President. The only suspense at the convention centers on Johnson’s choice of a running mate, Johnson chooses liberal and civil rights supporter Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey.

• August 26, 1964: The integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) claims the delegate seats for Mississippi in protest, because of the election of delegates by Jim Crow primary. Although the Liberals in the party want to divide equally the delegate seats, Johnson is concerned about losing the Southern vote entirely. A compromise with civil rights leaders; the MFDP would have two seats and the Mississippi delegate are required to support the party’s ticket, and no further convention would accept delegates where there was a Jim Crow primary. White delegates from Mississippi and Alabama refuse the compromise and leave the convention.

• August 27, 1964: Robert Kennedy tries to force Johnson to accept him as his running mate, which prompts Johnson to announce he would not choose any of his cabinet members as running mates; prompting Kennedy to resign from his post as Attorney General and for the Senate from New York; Johnson remains concerned Kennedy would use his speaking slot at the convention to gain support from the delegates to nominate him for Vice-President, to resolve the issue Johnson schedules Kennedy on the last night after the Vice-President nomination is decided.
• August 2-4, 1964: Tonkin Gulf incident.
• August 7, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, bombing North Vietnam. “Congress passed a joint resolution (H.J. RES 1145), the Southeast Asia Resolution, President Johnson had approval ‘to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia  Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.’”
• August 30, 1964: Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act which creates the Office of Economic Opportunity to combat the War on Poverty.

• 1964: Goldwater emphasizes conservative principles; “Southern strategy”: carry the Southern states, because of his position on states’ rights, and refusal to endorse civil-rights legislation, as well as Northern “white backlash” vote, those tired of the riots in black neighborhoods in the large Eastern cities. Goldwater speaks too much off-the-cuff, never alters his speech to match the constituency he was speaking to, ends up with contradictions.

• 1964: Johnson focuses on being Chief Magistrate, getting his accomplishments in the newspaper headlines. Johnson’s emphasis on “consensus” continuing John F. Kennedy’s programs, policies.
• 1964: Whistle-stop tour by the First Lady of the South States to gain support for Civil Rights; maintain the Democratic South.
• September 7, 1964: “Peace Little Girl (Daisy)” airs once, during the NBC Movie of the Week on. A young girl is seen picking daisies when the narrating voices countdown to zero the images of the girl dissolves into an image of a nuclear mushroom. Demonstrates the danger of putting Goldwater in charge of the nuclear button; Republican Party objects to the ad, and it never airs again.
• End of September 1964:  Johnson embarks on a forty-two-day stumping tour; 60,000 miles, two hundred speeches, motorcade, impromptu speeches through a handheld bullhorn, shake hands.
• Goldwater starts the campaign sounding too extreme. Later in the campaign, Goldwater tries to moderate his messages, and reassure voters he supports the U. N., Eisenhower’s foreign policy; does not want a war Russia, not against extending Social Security, and is for conscientiously administering civil rights.  Too late for his moderate tone, an impression had already been made with voters.
• Goldwater focuses on corruption in Washington, and “socialism.” He accuses on Johnson of amassing a fortune through devious means, and questions his association with Robert G. (“Bobby”) Baker, Billie Sol Estes, and Matt McCloskey all accused of (illegal?) business dealings. Johnson discloses an audit of his financial holdings.
• October 14, 1964: LBJ aide Walter Jenkins is arrested for disorderly conduct in a Washington YMCA under compromising circumstances. Jenkins, who held the position of special assistant to the president, is not only a close and loyal staffer but a family friend. Johnson campaign advisors believe that the incident would cause problems for Johnson’s campaign and that Johnson should distance himself from Jenkins, and campaign with his wife and daughters during the last two weeks of the campaign. Johnson immediately releases a statement that Jenkins has resigned from his position, but did not clarify what the position was. However, Johnson did not personally distance himself from Jenkins, offering Jenkins a position as the manager of the Johnson ranch, while the First Lady issues a statement.
• October 14, 1964: Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate believes that the arrest gives him the ammunition he needs to make the case of moral decline. Americans want “clear and constant evidence of the highest morality” in their government.
• Although no medical excuse could be found to cover the Jenkins story, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover decides to intervene, claiming that Barry Goldwater and his campaign had actually set-up Jenkins as part of a “Republican plot” to bring down Johnson. Hoover makes this connection because Jenkins had served in the same Air Force unit, which was commanded by Goldwater. In order to legitimize his claims, Hoover conducts an elaborate investigation. The Jenkins issue, however, disappears from the newspapers within days and was eclipsed by foreign policy issues. The Jenkins issue became irrelevant in the campaign.
• October 14-15, 1964: The Moscow politburo overthrows Nikita Khrushchev. Leonid Brezhnev assumes power.
• October 16, 1964: Communist China successfully tests its first nuclear device.
• October 27, 1964: Ronald Reagan gives primetime televised campaign address “A Time For Choosing” for Goldwater’s Presidential Campaign.
• October 31, 1964: John pledges to create the Great Society in an address at a Madison Square Garden, New York, campaign rally.
• November 4, 1964: Election Day, Democrats Lyndon B. Johnson is elected President, and Hubert Humphrey is elected Vice President. Johnson carries the South as a whole in the election but loses Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina.

• December 14, 1964: Presidential Electors cast the electoral vote in their state capitals.