Bombs Away: LBJ, Goldwater and the 1964 Campaign That Changed It All

The 1964 United States presidential campaign, between incumbent Democratic President Lyndon Johnson and Republican U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, was a dividing line in modern American politics and society. Before 1964, political advertisements were usually sedate and dignified, often even boring. Politicians almost never attacked each other directly. The Republican Party was dominated by its East Coast-based liberal wing. The Northeastern states tended to vote Republican, and the Deep South states of the old Confederacy had voted solidly Democratic since just after the Civil War. In 1964, all that changed.