In 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy very narrowly defeated Republican Richard M. Nixon for president. His plurality, not a majority, was about 0.1%. Pundits stated that if just one voter per precinct had switched from Kennedy to Nixon, Nixon would have won. It was that close.

Rumors ran rife that Nixon had won but that irregularities, i.e. frauds, had occurred in Illinois, Texas, West Virginia and Colorado. Illinois and Texas were very understandable. Chicago’s mayor was Richard ‘Vote early & often’ Daley & Texas was home to Lyndon B. Johnson who had won his senate race when one town ‘found’ a trove of votes that had been overwhelmingly cast for him, at a proportion far greater than the rest of the state.

In the 1962 mid-term election, the Democrats lost fewer seats than usual for the party in the White House. That was likely due to the successful American face off with the USSR of the Cuban Missile Crisis that ended just nine days before the election. Events like that spur a lot of support for any president.

Despite all that, there was evidence of growing voter dissatisfaction with Kennedy. The economic doldrums he’d campaigned against had continued. In fact, the issue of Time magazine of the very day of his assassination had an article about disillusionment with him on college campuses.

The civil rights movement was presenting him with a lot of political problems due to the resistance of the then solidly Democratic south. Martin Luther King, Jr’s efforts, black voter registration drives, Freedom Rides and sit-ins at segregated businesses were leading to conflicts and even violence. The South was a Democratic stronghold and blacks were increasingly turning Democratic from their traditional Republican roots. The Kennedys wanted to alienate neither.

By 1963, the Kennedy camp was taking stock of his potential 1964 opponents. Richard Nixon had been consigned to the political cemetery because of his loss in his 1962 campaign to unseat California Gov. Edmund ‘Pat’ Brown, Sr., father of the recent Gov. Edmund Brown, Jr.

Nixon had still been a potential adversary given his very narrow loss in 1960. The Kennedys did everything they could to ensure his defeat which resulted in his infamous ‘you won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore’ farewell news conference.

The New York Times’ James ‘Scotty’ Reston had famously said that New York’s Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s chances of not being the nominee in 1964 were about the same as his chances of going broke. He was wrong about that but Rockefeller was on the list with others.

The big fly in the ointment for Rockefeller was Arizona’s Sen. Barry Goldwater. His name had been placed in nomination by fellow Arizonans at the 1960 Republican National Convention, against his wishes. He withdrew his name, supporting Nixon. Nelson Rockefeller, also a contender, also withdrew in favor of Nixon but Goldwater was catapulted into a national presence.

Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963, throwing the entire 1964 Republican race into turmoil. His successor, Lyndon Johnson became the unchallenged Democratic nominee.

Goldwater immediately said that Americans would not accept a third president in just fourteen months and knew that Republican chances had collapsed. He was from the American Southwest. a completely different Republican background from that of the traditional blue bloods of the industrial northeast & Midwest. By 1964, because of dogged work among the rank & file of the party, he’d amassed a juggernaut of support that the Rockefeller wing could not defeat.

The Kennedys had feared Goldwater the most because he was the unknown. Kennedy had not done well in the West in 1960 & that was Barry’s turf. Further, Robert wanted to drop Johnson from the ticket which could have put the South into play. With Lyndon Johnson heading the ticket, any southern and western strategies were difficult.

Michigan Gov. George Romney, Mitt’s father, was among the Rockefeller wing, as were Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton, New York’s Senators Jacob Javits, Kenneth Keating & Cong. John Lindsay, and Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. They all met at a Stop Goldwater event, to no avail.

At the San Francisco National Convention, Goldwater was nominated on the first ballot and many of the Rockefeller wing stormed out, refusing to endorse him. Romney sat on his hands throughout the campaign and introduced Goldwater at a Michigan rally as the ‘Republican nominee for president’ rather than the traditional ‘next president of the United States.’

Lyndon Johnson received the Democratic nomination and pulled out the plugs for viciousness.

He had Goldwater depicted as a racist and a war monger with an itchy finger on the nuclear button. One infamous TV ad showed a little girl picking daisies and a voice counting down from ten to one that ended with a nuclear bomb mushroom, Goldwater immediately telephoned Johnson and told him if he used it again, he’d sue. Johnson didn’t.

Kennedy and Goldwater had been good friends in the Senate and were frequent lunch partners, going so far as to co-sponsor legislation & had one thing in common; they both despised Lyndon Johnson. Johnson swept 44 states with Goldwater taking his native Arizona and five southern states. Immediately after the election Johnson began the military buildup that he’d warned we’d have with Goldwater and that led to the collapse of South Viet-Nam and Cambodia.

The Rockefeller wing, aided and abetted by The NYT, WaPo and the other usual suspects began grooming their ‘solutions’ to lead the Republican Party out of the Goldwater wilderness. By 1968, Richard Nixon had had a rebirth by laboring, as Goldwater had, in the trenches, campaigning for Republicans across the country.

The Rockefeller wing, with the willing aid of the media, anointed George Romney as Republican front runner. Romney basked in the accolades but he had several huge problems.

In spite of the eastern establishment’s enamorment with Romney, he knew there was a new force emerging in American politics. He accepted that he’d have to make peace with Barry.

He sent Goldwater a letter, pointing out, not completely accurately, that he’d never joined the Stop Goldwater movement. Barry responded, fine George but where were you when the chips were down. Scranton, by contrast, recognizing the danger of Lyndon Johnson, stumped hard for Goldwater in seven states.

Romney also had a severe hair style that led many to simply dislike, even hate, him. But there was much worse and it first cropped up when he referred to Sen. Charles Percy of Illinois, as an opportunist. What he meant was a person who seized an opportunity but the term means without principle.

It’s important to realize that Percy was, otherwise, an obvious ally for Romney. He was fairly liberal in his voting record and from a neighboring state to Michigan. Percy was reportedly outraged. Far worse was to come.

It was standard fare at the time, perhaps less so now, for presidential hopefuls to go on fact-finding overseas tours to return with better insight for foreign policy. Romney went to Viet-Nam where he was given a tour by high ranking military personnel who, obviously, wanted to show our efforts and position in the best possible light. Romney came back saying he’d been brainwashed. His support plummeted, effectively ending his campaign for the nomination.

You might ask what does have to do with Mitt Romney, his son? Answer; everything!

He has often said that his father was his single greatest influence. What was his father? I’ve presented a superficial but accurate summary of the background George Romney’s political career. He can and should be categorized as what he called Percy, an opportunist. Mitt is too.

January 27, 2021

~ About the Author ~
Dr. Roderick T. Beaman is a board certified family osteopathic physician who practices in Jacksonville, Florida. A native born New Yorker, he is happy to be out of that pit of liberalism. A libertarian with little use for government, he is the author of an on-line piece that won a Ron Paul Liberty in Media Award. He also is a composer.