Talk Elections

(Part of a series of re-examining how historical landslides would turn out in today's very different and far more polarized United States)

Imagine if the 1964 election, Lyndon Johnson vs. Barry Goldwater, were held in today's United States...what would the electoral map look like?

(Also feel free to include a "swing" map from what the original election outcome was, if you like making maps :P)

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Goldwater wins in an epic landslide, a proof of how much America has regressed since then.

lol. LBJ would still win all the Gore/Kerry states. Obama did run on many of LBJ's polciies after all, and most Americans like their Medicare and Medicaid, which Goldwater opposed.

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Very divided today on that matter. Goldwater started a movement which would be the tea party ideology today. Johnson would be seen as Obama. The country would have to make a decision on which country they wanted to be.

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LBJ wins 363-175.

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LBJ 351-187

;D

I thought you hated Goldwater since you are a non-interventionist.

Methinks that today's Americans wouldn't be anymore willing to give up their Medicare, Social Security and other fun stuff in 2010 then they would in 1964.

Oh, whoops.

What do you mean "whoops"?

Swing map:

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Obama's policies are to the right of Nixon's. They don't even come close to LBJ's.

No you're wrong.

How so ? Obama's health care plan is way less ambitious and more market friendly than Nixon's.

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In addition, the upper marginal income tax rate was 70-77% under LBJ and Nixon, but Obama only wants to make it 40%.

Do remember that Richard Nixon had a Congress which was controlled by the Democrats, who he pretty much let do whatever they wanted on domestic issues, as well as he didn't really give a shit about domestic policy because he wanted to be a foreign policy President. He also supported transferring authority of Great Society programs to the states.


Which means absolutely nothing.

It means Obama is more right-wing than Nixon and LBJ, at least on economic policy.

Any President interested in implementing a right-wing agenda, and who was combative enough to, would have managed to passs at least a few thing, basing him upon a Republican-Southern democrat coalition. The congresses of the years 1950-1990 were not really left-wing congresses, at least not all of them. IMO, any Congresss of these years where republicans had more than 40% of the seats was a right-wing congress.

Goldwater wins, but only because Johnson would be seen as the greater evil.