From February 15 to June 19, 1964, voters of the Republican Party elected 1,308 delegates to the 1964 Republican National Convention through a series of delegate selection primaries and caucuses, for the purpose of determining the party's nominee for president in the 1964 United States presidential election.
United States Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona was selected as the nominee at the 1964 Republican National Convention held from July 13 to July 16, 1964, in San Francisco, California.
Background
1952 nomination
In 1952, Senator Robert A. Taft, a leading conservative, lost the nomination to Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower's candidacy was generated by a draft by the so-called "Eastern Establishment," led by Thomas E. Dewey and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. The nomination was narrowly secured when Dewey and Lodge out-maneuvered Taft in pre-convention fights over delegate credentials. Eisenhower won the general election and was re-elected in 1956. The bitter 1952 convention, the presumption that Taft was too extreme to win the general election, and Eisenhower's re-election meant that conservative Republicans had not occupied the White House since at least 1929 or won the Republican nomination since at least 1936. The memory of 1952, the last contested Republican nomination, remained fresh in the minds of all parties as the 1964 primaries approached.
1960 election
In 1960, the nomination was easily secured for Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon, who had made his name as an anti-communist Representative and Senator from California, was acceptable to all branches of the party. His only serious challenge came from Nelson Rockefeller, the free-spending Governor of New York and heir to the Rockefeller family fortune and Dewey's position as leader of the moderate party establishment. Though Rockefeller could not take the nomination himself, he could potentially marshal delegates to deny Nixon the nomination at the convention. On July 22, Nixon met Rockefeller at the latter's Fifth Avenue penthouse. After four hours of negotiations, they reached an agreement for fourteen points in the party platform, generally committing Nixon to greater spending on defense and education, opposition to racial segregation, and a flexible internationalist foreign policy. The so-called Compact of Fifth Avenue was reviled by conservatives, who unsuccessfully attempted to draft Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, an occasional Eisenhower critic, as Nixon's running mate; at the convention, however, Goldwater declined to run.
Nixon narrowly lost the election to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic elected president and a supporter of federal enforcement of equal civil rights for African Americans, performed relatively poorly in the South. While the region had been a Democratic stronghold since the end of Reconstruction, Kennedy's only convincing majority was in the state of Georgia. He lost Tennessee and Florida to Nixon and only narrowly won North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. In four more states, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, dissident members of his own party fielded independent slates of electors which refused to pledge their votes to Kennedy. Thus, despite Nixon's loss, the Republican Party entered the Kennedy administration with hopes of finding support in the South.
Draft Goldwater Committee
The earliest movements toward the 1964 nomination were made on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, against his express wishes, by a group composed mostly of Young Republicans and led by F. Clifton White, a longtime party activist from upstate New York. At a secret meeting in Chicago on October 8, 1961, White proposed that, partly thanks to the reallocation of delegates toward the conservative South and Midwest, a candidate could secure the nomination without the support of New York or New England. The group agreed to organize throughout the country and began fundraising.
In spring 1962, they leased a Manhattan office in the Chanin Building. Their address, Suite 3505, became the informal name of their campaign. Goldwater had a personal audience with White in January 1963 and urged him to drop the draft effort. Instead, the group went public as the "Draft Goldwater Committee." Headquarters were informally opened in critical states by mid-1963, and by the summer he led some opinion polls among Republicans. The New York Times reported on July 7 that a movement was underfoot in the northeast for "favorite sons" to run in state primaries to prevent a Goldwater nomination, since they feared major losses with Goldwater.
Nelson Rockefeller marriage
Though conservatives organized behind the unwilling Goldwater, the leading candidate for the nomination in early 1963 was Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller began to campaign around the country and was well received on a spring tour of the Midwest, though he stopped Goodwin Knight from formally establishing a California campaign office. He led most polling over Goldwater through the spring.
However, Rockefeller's popularity plummeted when he remarried on May 4. Rockefeller had been divorced from Mary Todhunter Clark for about one year. His new wife, Margaretta Large "Happy" Filter, was eighteen years his junior, had worked as a member of his office staff, and had been married to Rockefeller's close friend, with four children, just one month prior. They left for a honeymoon in Venezuela and the Virgin Islands.
The marriage was instantly the subject of scrutiny and criticism from the press, fellow Republicans, and even the United Presbyterian Church. Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, speaking at a prep school graduation, asked, "Have we come to the point in our life as a nation where the governor of a great state can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a mother of youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the governor?" When the newlyweds attended the convention of the National Federation of Republican Women convention later that year (by then a loyal Goldwater organization), they were received with silence, and several women staged a walk-out. Others publicly criticizing the marriage included Reinhold Niebuhr and Nikita Khrushchev.
In Gallup polling, Rockefeller lost a seventeen-point lead in polling and trailed Goldwater by five points. Any conservative support was gone, as was much of his moderate base. The Republican Citizens Committee, a caucus of moderate Republicans, decided by July 16 not to support Rockefeller. Rockefeller plowed ahead with a New Hampshire campaign; on September 16, he announced that former Governor Hugh Gregg would lead his campaign. Rockefeller began campaigning in New Hampshire in October 1963 and formally entered the race on November 7.
Kennedy assassination
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
The Kennedy assassination rocked the Republican primary. Rockefeller, the only candidate actively in the race, paused his campaign for a month of mourning. Those candidates not already running declined to openly seek the nomination, either out of principle or fear of a career-ending loss. Newly inaugurated President Lyndon B. Johnson enjoyed a major groundswell of sympathy and support, leading all contenders by a large margin.
On December 7, Dwight Eisenhower called on Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to enter the race as a compromise candidate.
Goldwater formally entered the race on January 3.
Candidates
The following political leaders were candidates for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination:
Other major candidates
These candidates participated in multiple state primaries or were included in multiple major national polls.
Favorite sons
The following candidates ran only in their state's own primary, for the purpose of controlling the delegate slate at the 1964 Convention:
- Representative John W. Byrnes of Wisconsin
- Senator Hiram Fong of Hawaii
- Governor Jim Rhodes of Ohio
Declined to run
- Former Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany Lucius D. Clay of New York
- Governor Mark Hatfield of Oregon
- Aviator Charles Lindbergh of Connecticut
- Former Vice President Richard Nixon of California
- Governor George Romney of Michigan
- General Edwin Walker of Texas
Campaign
March 10: New Hampshire primary and Draft Lodge movement
The first test for the candidates came in New Hampshire, where any candidate's name could be submitted to the ballot without their affirmative consent.
With the support of the influential Manchester Union-Leader and Senator Norris Cotton, the Goldwater campaign was confident they would carry New Hampshire. However, after a disastrous, gaffe-filled appearance on Meet the Press and a trip to the state in January, in which he countered President Johnson's claim that Kennedy was "a victim of hate" and challenged the Pentagon to disclose the details of its long-range missile program, his momentum stalled. In total, Goldwater would spend twenty-one days campaign continuously in New Hampshire before leaving on March 7, confidently predicting, "I've got it made."
Many sought an alternative to Goldwater and Rockefeller. Despite lobbying from liberal Republicans, William Scranton and George Romney both legally moved to remove themselves from consideration. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of neighboring Maine, the first woman to campaign for a major party nomination, visited only briefly, did not purchase television advertisements, and gained little traction in the state. Another obvious option, Richard Nixon, held himself out as an elder statesman and potential candidate for a draft, but few steps were made on his behalf.
Instead, moderates and liberals rallied behind Eisenhower's choice for the nomination, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Lodge was serving as United States Ambassador to South Vietnam, and through his son George C. Lodge had communicated a policy of non-interference with his campaign managers in New Hampshire. Building off momentum from Eisenhower's rumored endorsement and working with the Robert Mullen Company, the leanly staffed Draft Lodge movement operated through an effective use of the press and advertising. The Draft Lodge men ran a commercial from the 1960 campaign, edited to imply that Eisenhower had publicly endorsed Lodge. When Goldwater pled with the former president to refute the ad, Eisenhower declined.
Draft Lodge gained new momentum in February when Goldwater declared that Lodge had "kind of balled up" Vietnam. Although the Lodge campaign expected that this would open the door for Rockefeller to seize momentum by defending Lodge's name, Rockefeller instead joined the attack with a statement on the "mess" in Vietnam before quickly reversing and publicly apologizing to Lodge. Thus, Lodge remained above the fray and a symbol of patriotic diplomacy, while Goldwater appeared unpatriotic and Rockefeller appeared to be both a bully and a wimp. As the primary approached and Lodge appeared to be a viable candidate, his son and Robert Mullen personally visited the state.
The primary itself was held under a foot of snow. Lodge delegates swept, and he received 35 percent of the vote. He was followed by Goldwater with 23 percent, Rockefeller with 21 percent, Nixon with 17 percent, and Margaret Chase Smith with 3 percent. A handful of voters wrote in Bill Scranton, despite his refusal to stand as a candidate.
Despite the victory, Lodge announced, "I do not plan to go to the United States. I do not plan to leave Saigon. I do not intend to resign." Regardless, the primary was a major victory for liberals and moderates over the conservative Goldwater campaign. Scotty Reston predicted Scranton, Nixon, or Lodge would be nominated, and Nixon told reporters, "I feel that there is no man in this country who can make a case against Mr. Johnson more effectively than I can" before departing for a tour of Asia. Goldwater admitted that he had "goofed up somewhere," but his campaign remained optimistic; Denison Kitchel said he was pleased that "a candidate from the Far West... could do so well in the New England state of New Hampshire,"