1964 election compared to 2012 election?

The 1964 election came in the wake of the JFK assassination. LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) had taken over when Kennedy was killed, and now he was running for a term of his own. Against him was Barry Goldwater, who was generally considered to be way too far to the right.

Conservatism was different in those days. Ronald Reagan totally changed the US conservative movement when he got elected in 2000. He took it in a new direction. We call Reagan's form of conservatism 'neoconservatism' (new) and Goldwater's ideas 'paleoconservatism' (old).

Goldwater had some ideas that just sounded bizarre in those days. He warned that if Johnson was re-elected we'd be attacked by the USSR. There was a famous TV ad that everyone talked about for a long time, of a little girl plucking petals from a daisy ('He loves me. He loves me not.') while a nuclear weapon explodes in the distance. I think it's called 'the daisy ad' even today. You might even find it on YouTube. Everyone thought it was outrageous. The Republicans always tried to portray the Democrats as 'soft on Communism'. I think it might have been Goldwater's accusations that goaded Johnson into escalating the war in Vietnam so he'd look tougher on communism.

Goldwater was not the favorite candidate of most Republicans. He had a small but very dedicated and loyal cadre of fans who pushed the rest of the party to nominate him. The same thing happened in the Democratic Party in 1972 with George McGovern. And both these guys lost by the two biggest landslides in US history. McGovern lost by the biggest electoral vote margin of any candidate ever, and Goldwater lost by the biggest popular vote. I always remember this when people today say Ron Paul could have won if he'd been nominated this year. He's exactly the same kind of candidate--out of the party mainstream but totally loved by a small but vocal minority.

The Republican convention that year was almost a comedy. It was held in San Francisco, perhaps the US's most liberal city. There was a battle between the 'extreme' conservatives of the Southwest and the more moderate conservatives of the Northeast. Most Republicans wanted Nelson Rockefeller, who would be a flaming liberal by today's standards, but Rockefeller had been divorced and it was a well-known fact that no divorced man could ever be president (until Reagan won). Goldwater spoke in very strong rhetoric, accusing Eisenhower (the last Republican president, perhaps the most popular president since FDR) of being too liberal. Then he said that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. I think at this point a lot of delegates just got up and walked out! This is one of the most famous, and best remembered things ever said at a national party convention!

Since Goldwater's huge loss, the Republicans have followed a different methodology. Starting with Nixon in 1968, Republican candidates have tried to sound hard-line during primaries, but then when they'd won the nomination they tried to sound more moderate, to attract the moderates and independents they need to win the general election. Romney wasn't able to follow this plan, though. He tried to be moderate all along, but the Tea Party contingent of the GOP wouldn't let him. When he had the nomination sewed up, he should have gone for a moderate running mate to attract those moderates and independents, but he wasn't able to take his base for granted, so he picked Paul Ryan, known to most Americans simply as The Man Who Tried to Kill Medicare.

And another similarity is that after Goldwater's loss in 1964 the Republican Party was thought to be destroyed, obsolete, wandering in the wilderness, and the same after Romney's loss in 2012, with the Repubs losing the popular vote nationwide in the last 5 of 6 elections (and the one they did win is questionable!) But within 4 years after Goldwater's debacle, Americans had grown tired and angry about the Vietnam War, Johnson decided not to run again, and the Republicans took back the White House pretty easily. I don't think it will be as easy in 2016.

@Mr. Smartypants: Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, and left office in 1989; George W. Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court in 2000, took office in 2001, left office in 2009.

But at least Mr. Smartypants is right about who ran for office in 1964 -- it was Lyndon Johnson on the Democratic ticket vs. Barry Goldwater for the Republican Party.