1964: NO CONTEST FOR JOHNSON

	VS
L. B. Johnson 61%		B. M. Goldwater

One year after assuming presidential duties following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson faced an election challenge, albeit a benign one. Racial segregation was the dominant issue in the campaign. 1964 was the year that civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Months earlier Johnson had signed a landmark civil rights bill.

Meanwhile, Johnson's Republican challenger, Barry M. Goldwater, never wavered from his rigid, segregationist stance. During the campaign, the Arizona senator said, "There's freedom to associate, and then there's freedom not to associate." Johnson depicted Goldwater as a radical rightist who should be kept away from the White House and the nuclear button.

When Goldwater accepted his party's nomination, he told the crowd, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." To which Johnson replied (somewhat sanctimoniously): "Extremism in the pursuit of the presidency is an unpardonable vice." Johnson won by a landslide.

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