[1] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[c] 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?
Newly inaugurated President Lyndon B. Johnson enjoyed a major groundswell of sympathy and support, leading all contenders by a large margin.
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.
[115] 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."
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.
[116] 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.
[118] 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.
On the day before the two primaries, Rockefeller took the controversial stand of calling for US air strikes into Laos and Cambodia to help the government of South Vietnam.
That same day, his supporters pushed the small cadre of black voters out of the Georgia Republican Party, taking 22 out of the 24 national delegates.
Goldwater supporters the following day forced through Tennessee's first all-white delegation to the Republican National Convention in half a century.
Even when Lodge's supporters agreed to join Rockefeller in California in a "stop Goldwater" move, the polls only showed a minimal gain for Rocky.
Another thing became clear: the California voters finally began shifting to Rocky, who took the lead in opinion polls in the week preceding the primary.
CBS used computers to sample the data collected from various polling places to announce at 7:22 p.m. Pacific time that Goldwater would win the race.
Michigan's Governor Romney announced that the state's delegation would meet separately with Goldwater and Scranton before deciding how to vote.
A staunch supporter of the Civil Rights Bill, Romney claimed that Goldwater's nomination would lead to the "suicidal destruction of the Republican Party".
Following a $3 million improvement project in 1963, the Cow Palace applied to host the national convention and was chosen by Republican leaders over Chicago, Miami Beach, and four other cities.
Goldwater rejected a last offer by Scranton to debate, and Senator Margaret C. Smith arrived at the convention still campaigning for delegate support.
He set forth the party's case for defeating LBJ and spoke out against extremism and the "bigots in this nation who spew forth their venom of hate."
The convention was formally organized in the morning, with Senator Morton giving a speech "laying" the "dirty linen" of the Johnson administration on the line.
When finished, Senator Hugh Scott offered the first amendment at 10:00 p.m., condemning the Ku Klux Klan, the Communist Party, and the John Birch Society.
Charles H. Percy, candidate for governor of Illinois, placed RNC Chairman William E. Miller into nomination for vice president.
His most famous passage was "Today ... the task of preserving and enlarging freedom at home and of safeguarding it from the forces of tyranny abroad is great enough to challenge all our resources and to re-fire all our strength.