Talk:United States presidential election, 1960

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[edit] Stop adding non-candidates and screwing up Wikipedia

Whatever ignorant swine thought Barry Goldwater ran for the nomination, or that Orvile Faubus ran is a dumb idiot. There were five candidates I deleted on this because THEY NEVER SOUGHT THE NOMINATION. And if they didn't, they shouldn't be listed as a candidate. Who the hell created this article and put these pictures up? The same shit is going on in the elections of the 50's and the rest of this decade. It makes me furious. Just because someone was a significant senator at the time, or a significant governor, doesn't mean they ran for president. Only put official candidates, and make a catergory specifying "potention candidates who did NOT run". Otherwise, people think these guys are official candidates instead of speculated people who could make a run. There is a huge difference and you are miseducating the American people.

I agree completely with the above statement. These articles are long enough as it is without adding a completely irrelevant section showing photos of people who never actually ran for President! The list of photos for "possible candidates" could be endless. Frankly, I also disagree with the idea of showing photos of every minor candidate in a given election, as it greatly increases the length of the article. It seems to me that the articles should focus on the written word, and not be cluttered up with (in some campaigns) dozens of photos of minor candidates or even those who never actually ran for office. User: Populism —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.145.229.162 (talk) 06:08, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Research

If anyone is needing infofmation on this election, I wrote a paper on it last year. User:The_stuart/The_Day_Television_Picked_the_President --The_stuart 01:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


MM... there is a lotta crap in the article like teh "baked potato" and"yor mother" among others. Someone needs to clean this up

[edit] Inconsistency about Nixon injury

This article states: because he injured his knee on the way to the studio while the article Richard Nixon states: was feeling sick, having recently injured his knee while campaigning Anyone want to clear up this inconsistancy? --130.184.31.21 21:26, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kennedy, the mafia an illinois results

There is nothing in the article about the Illinois results and the presumed links between Kennedy and the Chicago mafia. Maybe somone could correct it.--Revas 22:51, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral picture peculiarity

Why is the graphic depiction of electoral votes skewed? Rarely nowadays does one see democratic votes colored red and and republican votes blue. --maru (talk) Contribs 20:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

You said it yourself -- nowadays one doesn't see it that way. Historically, however, there is no standard and thus older maps can be different ways. Be bold and update it if you like! -Jcbarr 20:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

maru's original post has been copied to Wikipedia talk:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy#Electoral picture peculiarity since he has seen fit to copy this to many other U.S. presidential election talk pages. Please direct your responses there.

— DLJessup (talk) 21:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Why are the blue/red colors framing the photographs of Kennedy and Nixon inconsistent with the colors of the map. The colors of the photographs should be swapped to match the map. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.254.147.8 (talk) 15:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Because some idiot decided to retrofit the old election pages with the current Dem=Blue GOP=Red color scheme, even though it was the other way around until 1980. Someone should change the candidate colors back, since in 1960, the Democrats were Red and the Republicans were blue, as reflected in the electoral map there. 142.177.154.189 (talk) 01:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

OR we should make the maps Red=Republican, Blue=Democrat because that is how it is universally done and known today, and having the "old" scheme is confusing to most of us, who know the current color scheme. Red and blue weren't even used by everyone until the 70's for elections. Some used green and gray. And the networks differed with color.Tallicfan20 (talk) 04:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Results table and Alabama electors

To start off with, I recently reverted a change by an anonymous user, which was identical to an edit by Australia boy. When I did so, I used “reverted vandalism” as the edit summary. This was intemperate, and is borne of frustrations in my life outside of Wikipedia, so I apologize for that.

Nonetheless, I am annoyed by these changes, and I wish to explain why. First of all, in an attempt to be as precise as possible, the Democratic vote in 1960 is split into three lines: one for votes that can be attributed to John Kennedy, one for votes which went to slates of unpledged electors, and one for Alabama, which had a mixed slate of Kennedy-pledged electors and unpledged electors. It should be noted that all of the unpledged electors, inside and outside Alabama, did not vote for Kennedy. How many voters casting their ballots for the Democratic slate were voting for Kennedy and how many were segregationists voting for the unpledged electors is unknown and unknowable because of the mixed slate. The table is carefully footnoted to explain each of these lines.

Nevertheless, there have been many clumsy attempts to “fix” the results table. First, people began just adding back the Alabama voters without even removing the footnote that explains that that figure lacks the Alabama voters. More recently, people have been adding back the Alabama voters and removing the footnote. In neither case have the editors attempting a fix removed the PV for the Alabama electors under "(Alabama Democratic slate)", meaning that if you actually added up the PV Count column, the total would be greater than the figure in the Total row, and the PV percentages would add up to more than 100%.

The problem, of course, is that some editors feel that Kennedy is somehow disparaged by the fact that he may not have gotten a plurality of the popular vote in his contest with Nixon. I disagree with this point of view: 100 years earlier, Lincoln only managed to get a plurality of the popular vote because the Democrats were split—his PV was less than 40%—yet would have won a majority of the electoral college even if the Democrats had not been split down the middle in spite of his unpopularity with the slavocrats. Do we think any less of Lincoln because of this? Kennedy only missed a plurality because of Southern segregationists (which is a plus in my book), and he still got the sort of broad geographic support that the Electoral College requires for victory.

Is there anything I can do about this? How about this for the results table:

Presidential Candidate Party Home State Popular Vote Electoral
Vote		 Running Mate Running Mate's
Home State		 RM's Electoral
Vote
Count Pct
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Democratic Massachusetts between
33,902,681 and
34,220,984(a)		 between
49.3% and
49.8%(a)		 303 Lyndon Baines Johnson Texas 303
Richard Milhous Nixon Republican California 34,108,157 49.6% 219 Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Massachusetts 219
Harry Flood Byrd (none) Virginia —(b) —(b) 15 James Strom Thurmond South Carolina 14
Barry Morris Goldwater(c) Arizona 1(c)
(unpledged electors) Democratic (n/a) between
286,359 and
604,662(d)		 between
0.4% and
0.9%(d)		 —(e) (n/a) (n/a) —(e)
Other 216,982 0.3% – Other –
Total 68,832,482 100 % 537 537
Needed to win 269 269

Hopefully, that will make it clearer that Kennedy's PV is a range of possibilities.

— DLJessup (talk) 23:27, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The current version of the table states that the total percentage is 49.9 + 49.6 + .3 + .4. Now this equals to 100.2% maybe someone could fix these numbers? cheers

[edit] Documentation of radio vs TV discrepancy in debates

The notion that Nixon "won" the debate among radio listeners while losing among TV watchers has become part of American political folklore, but I recall reading a letter in the New York Times a few years ago arguing that the proof of this alleged fact was quite shaky. Specifically, whereas the polling of TV watchers was well structured from a statistical perspective, the sample of radio listeners was too small for the results to be considered conclusive. Until I have the source to dispute this fact, I don't want to change the article. Has anyone else heard of this data? -- 70.18.192.220 16:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I listened to the debate on the radio at the time and thought Nixon did better.  :) Rjensen 03:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe the question was first raised in the following article: Vancil, D. L., & Pendell, S. D. (1987), The Myth of Viewer-Listener Disagreement in the First Kennedy-Nixon Debate, Central States Speech Journal, 38, 16-27. My recollection is that the authors determined that the radio/television myth was based on a single newspaper article citing an anectodal report of a small, non-scientific sampling in Georgia. The myth has endured as a fable of sorts about the powerful message it relates about television and its impact on style over substance. meyerlondon 23:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The invaluable Mark Blumenthal (aka MysteryPollster) addressed this question recently, citing Vancil/Pendell and other sources. I have updated the item based on his summary.67.109.103.194 17:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speculation about Ike?

Let's drop unsourced speculation that Ike might have run except for 22nd amdt. Not true. He strongly believed in the no 3rd term tradition that the amendment codified. Rjensen 14:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The following was written and then collided with Rjensen's post above:

Rjensen deleted these two sentences from the introduction:
Voters were generally happy with the Eisenhower administration, but, under the provisions of the 22nd amendment, Eisenhower was disqualified from running because he had been elected twice. (Whether Eisenhower would have run absent this amendment is unknown and unknowable.)
with the edit summary, “del speculation about noncandidates”. I don't understand what is speculative about these two sentences. Eisenhower was popular. Eisenhower was indeed barred from running again by the 22nd Amendment, the first time that the Two-Term Amendment had so affected a race. The second, parenthetical sentence damps down any implication that Eisenhower would have run absent the Two-Term Amendment. (In fact, the second sentence was introduced because Rjensen had previously deleted the first sentence, claiming it was speculative.)
Moreover, what these two sentences are talking about is important, and it would be unencyclopedic to omit them. An amendment takes a lot of effort to be passed, and the Two Term Amendment has a very narrow scope. This is the very first time that it operated. Even if Eisenhower would have decided not to run absent the amendment, he couldn't threaten to run for re-election. The Democrats knew well ahead of time that—unless Eisenhower died in office, a distinct possibility given his heart attacks—they would be bidding for an open seat, not fighting an incumbent President.
I would love to see if there is any way to improve these two sentences. But we can't simply omit the fact that the Two-Term Amendment operated in this election.
— DLJessup (talk) 14:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Response to Rjensen's post and his most recent changes:

I just saw your changes to the introduction: thank you.

— DLJessup (talk) 14:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alabama electors

The text of the second graf of controversies used to read:

The actual number of popular votes received by Kennedy is difficult to determine. In Alabama, the statewide primary had chosen eleven electors, five of which were pledged to vote for Kennedy, and six of whom were free to vote for anyone they chose. The ballot gave voters a choice between Nixon and a slate of Democratic unpledged electors. It is unclear how many of the 318,303 Democratic votes in Alabama were for the unpledged electors, and how many were for Kennedy. If as few as 36% of these votes were cast for the unpledged electors, then Nixon won a plurality of the popular vote.

Rjensen has modified to read as follows:

The ballot gave voters a choice between Nixon and a slate of Democratic unpledged electors, which carried the state. Byrd's name was not on the ballot; he was not a candidate; no one campaigned for him. He did not receive votes. In Alabama, the statewide primary had chosen eleven electors, five of which were pledged to vote for Kennedy, and six of whom were free to vote for anyone they chose. After the popular election was over the six men decided to cast their electoral votes for Byrd.

This change is problematic for several reasons:

  • The graf begins “The ballot…”. Unfortunately, it is totally unclear that Rjensen is talking about the Alabama ballot, as Alabama is not even mentioned until the fourth sentence of the graf.
  • Rjensen removes the topic sentence; namely, that the number of popular votes received by Kennedy is difficult to determine. He then expunges much of the material supporting this statement.
  • Rjensen inserts and indeed emphasizes the fact that Byrd was the choice of the unpledged electors, even though that same information is made abundantly clear in the paragraph and section immediately following this one.

This is not to say that the original graf doesn't have issues:

  • “statewide primary” should read “statewide Democratic primary”.
  • The ballot did not give voters a choice between Nixon and a slate of Democratic unpledged electors; rather, it gave voters a choice between Nixon and a slate of Democratic electors, six of whom were unpledged.

In any case, I am restoring the original graf with the two most recently mentioned issues fixed.

— DLJessup (talk) 03:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Nobody voted for Byrd. There is no way for Wiki to figure out how to deduct votes from Kennedy total on the assumption that some people really wanted to vote for some mysterious unknown. Wiki can ONLY report what scholars have decided. If they disagree we say so. Rjensen 03:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
The graf certainly doesn't say anybody did vote for Byrd. That particular problem has been removed. I'm not sure what your complaint is with regards to scholarship: there is a citation to a scholarly article about the difficulties in assigning the popular vote in Alabama at the end of the graf.
— DLJessup (talk) 04:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm just revised the “Results” section again on this issue. Here are the changes I made:

  • I tried to update the results table to include all of the uncertainties in the figures, including the variance between individual electors and the Alabama situation. This made a mess of the table. I therefore decided to make the table the “traditional” table and move the various uncertainties entirely to the text, leaving a footnote pointing to that section of the text.
  • I fixed the text that indicated that Alabama's vote was between slates of electors, which is untrue. I also added some discussion on the minor issue of how the popular vote is traditionally calculated when electors are voted upon individually.
  • I changed the discussion of the split Democratic electors from an apologia for the traditional calculation of the popular vote to an explication of the traditional calculation and of a scholarly alternative.

— DLJessup (talk) 04:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

RICHARD NIXON PHOTO The photo that currently exists currently exists for Nixon under "Runner Up" at the top is his official presidential photo. But, in 1960, he was not President yet, only Vice President. Could someone please put a photo under Runner Up from his VP years (such as his official VP photo, if such a thing exists)? Thanks. Nopm 01:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

All of the presidential elections are like that. (go back and look) It is easier to use the same pic for every election that someone is in than get a new one for each election. It is good for consistency as well. However, if anyone has one that they would like to swap it with, then by all means go ahead and do so. (Cardsplayer4life 09:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

Let me clarify: What I meant was, the 1960 election was NOT the one that made Nixon President - the 1968 election was. Therefore, Nixon received his Official Presidential Portrait (the one displayed under "Runner Up" on this page) as a result of winning the election in 1968, not in 1960. In 1960, people thought that Nixon's highest office would only be VP, not Pres. For comparison purposes, since Reagan won the 1980 election, it is highly appropriate to put his Official Portrait up in the 1980 page - because the 1980 election made him President, even if he was not actually president until 1981. But since, as a result of the 1960 election, Nixon only remained Vice President, I believe that his VP portrait (or a picture from his VP years) would be better. As another way of illustration: In 1960, Nixon was 47 years old. In 1968, Nixon was 55 years old. However, in this page about 1960 (when Nixon was 47), we have a picture of him when he was 55. To me, this does not make sense. Please advise. Nopm 00:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

THANK YOU!!! :)) Much more time-appropriate picture of Nixon. Thanks to whomever put it up. Nopm 22:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

KENNEDY NOT LAST PREZ FROM NORTHEAST Kennedy was NOT the last President from the Northeast, as is frequently stated, including at the bottom of this Wikipedia entry - so I will remove that reference. Who was the last Northeastern Prez? None other than Nixon himself, who served from New York from January 20, 1969 until January 20, 1973. (He served from California from January 20, 1973 until August 9, 1974, and he also served from California during his Vice Presidential terms and also from California during his Congressional terms). He moved from California to New York for his first Presidential term. Nopm 22:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Winner/Runner-Up

I have to voice my concern that this format is hurting the article. I will post this on a few notable election pages and hope that it's noticed. I have to admire the determination of whoever came up with this idea (it's apparently on every page) but ultimately, I think it should go. I think that having "winner/runner-up" displayed so prominently in the infobox overshadows the importance of the election. Some of these elections were not mere contests, but were epic events in American history where a variety of important viewpoints were symbolically represented and voted upon. Just in the last 50 years, the notable political climates of 1968 and 2004 came to a boiling point around election time. We should not be placing so much emphasis on the "winner" and the "runner-up" -- this is not a spelling bee. If we condense this into who "won" we are doing a disservice to the issues that drove these elections. SpiderMMB 23:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Why Kennedy won the popular vote

The argument for the proposition that Nixon won the popular vote in 1960 is the existence of six so-called unpledged Democratic electors in the state of Alabama. It is theorized that since these electors considered themselves unpledged, and since they voted for Harry Byrd instead of John Kennedy, that only five-elevenths of the votes in Kennedy votes in Alabama should be counted, or that the Kennedy votes in this state should not be counted at all. It is impossible for the Democratic Party to have had any unpledged electors in 1960. The Democratic Party had a national nominee for President, Kennedy, and all Democratic electors had to either vote for the nominee of the party or be considered faithless electors. In January 1960 the Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee announced that it would not administer a loyalty oath binding electors to vote for the party nominee (New York Times January 24, 1960 page 48). As a result, six of the eleven Democratic elector candidates elected in the primary refused to pledge themselves to vote for the nominee. Had this oath been administered, as it should have been, then all eleven of Alabama's Democratic electors would have supported Kennedy. The situation in 1960 was complicated even further by the existence of a third slate of electors in Mississippi, who referred to themselves as “unpledged democratic electors” and who, having won a plurality of the vote, cast their eight electoral votes for Byrd. These electors were put on the ballot by Governor Barnett of Mississippi, a fire-breathing segregationist. They had nothing to do with the national Democratic Party and were not endorsed by them, there being a separate slate of Democratic electors in Mississippi pledged to Kennedy who finished in second place in that state. The Byrd electors in Mississippi were not Democratic. They were independent and unaffiliated. The Alabama Democratic electors, on the other hand, were the official electors of the party. It was not until a month after the November election that any of the Alabama "unpledged" electors definitely ruled out voting for Kennedy. Because of this, they ought to be viewed as obligated to vote for their party's nominee, and votes cast for them ought to be counted as having been cast for the nominee. The correct way of counting the vote in 1960 is to credit Kennedy with the votes of the top Democratic elector in Alabama, who won 324,050 votes, and to credit Nixon with the votes of the top Republican elector in Alabama, who won 237,981 votes. These votes must then be added to the Kennedy and Nixon votes in the other forty-nine states to arrive at a nationwide popular vote total of 34,226,731 votes for Kennedy and 34,108,157 votes for Nixon. Kennedy’s nationwide plurality was therefore 118,574 votes.65.94.58.129 02:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "closest margin"

In the national popular vote Kennedy beat Nixon by just one tenth of one percentage point (0.1%) - the closest popular-vote margin of the twentieth century.

I think this line is misleading. If the metric being described is victory margin, then Bush's popular vote margin was negative, and thus less. (And, oh dear, now there shall be an argument over whether 2000 was in the 20th century.) Tempshill 21:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox inconsistency?

Without in any way suggesting that I am a fan of the candidacy of Harry F. Byrd, I'm curious why his picture isn't featured in the infobox for this article, as are pictures of third-party candidates who captured electoral votes in other U.S. presidential elections (see, e.g., United States presidential election, 1912, United States presidential election, 1924, United States presidential election, 1948). Any particular reason? --JohnPomeranz (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Was Byrd even a formal candidate for president? Also, I can't find corroboration for Goldwater declaring himself as Byrd's running mate. If no one can come up with something, I'll delete it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.66.245.73 (talk) 00:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC) I am answering your question. Byrd was not an official candidate, (I found that out on a sight other than Wikipedia, because people who make this page do a terrible job), but disheartened electors pledged their electorate votes for Byrd, versus Nixon, which is what they were assigned. Goldwater never ran with Byrd, the (I think) 9 disheartened electorates put Goldwater on as a running mate. Someone also has to stop putting non-candidates in this election, and all the other ones. It's making me furious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cooman456 (talk • contribs) 06:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone has now listed Strom Thurmond as Harry Byrd's running mate in 1960; given that Byrd wasn't an active candidate and made no campaigning, I don't see why Thurmond (or anyone else) should be listed as his "running mate". I don't think photos of any candidates should be shown at the top; links to the candidate's names will provide an article with photos - it seems to me that the candidate photos are just cluttering up the articles on presidential campaigns instead of providing information.

[edit] Neutrality?

"Earl Mazo, a reporter for the pro-Nixon New York Herald Tribune," The New York Herald is desribed as "pro-Nixon". Where is the supporting evidence? If there editorial board endorsed Nixon then say so. But implying the paper is "pro-Nixon" implies the paper had a motive to falsify a story that Cook County cheated Nixon.

Also the 450,000 victory margin in Cook County, Illinois does not jive with the 1960 voting numbers provided in the wiki "Cook County". Which numbers are correct? Felixnietzsche (talk) 17:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cause for Kennedy win

I wish the article could go into a little more depth about the reason for the Kennedy win in this election. Many of the reasons given a true on a micro-scale (e.g., Nixon looked bad on television, a flip comment from Eisenhower), and given the context it seems would not make a huge differences in the election. Articles from previous years usually talked about things on a more major scale, or it was easy to figure out (e.g., McCarthyism in 1952, split of a party in 1860 or 1912, weariness in 1920, etc.). It would be nice if the article could talk more about why, in a time of economic prosperity following a Republican rule and a foreign threat in the Soviets, the country suddenly decided to turn its course. The only possibilies I can think of would be a) the charismatic personality of Kennedy, b) jadedness with McCarthyist rhetoric (though that should have shown up in 1956), and c) the beginning of the 60s era social revolution. Thoughts? The Evil Spartan (talk) 05:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)