Also, many Appalachian mountain Republicans who could naturally associate with Ozark Methodist Landon but could not accept Goldwater’s economic and war policies, nor his Southwestern libertarianism.
It’s extremely interesting in light of today’s political patterns that the three western Border States of Missouri, Kentucky and West Virginia all voted more Republican than the nation in 1936, but more Democratic in 1964. In fact, 1936 was the last election until
1972 when West Virginia voted more Republican than the nation at large, which says something about how Landon’s appeal was really restricted to traditional Yankee and Appalachian Republicans who would have seen him as “one of us”.
I often think the Southwest and “Greater Appalachia” dislike and oppose each other on many levels – this is seen not only in 1936 and 1964, but also with Jimmy Carter in his two elections and even with Trump’s Appalachian appeal and weakness in California and Arizona.
