1960 Presidential election

LBJ’s success in the Senate made him a potential Democratic presidential candidate. He was praised by the candidate of the Texas delegation at the Party’s national convention in 1956 and appeared to be in a position to run for the 1960 nomination. Jim Rowe wanted him to urge Johnson not run a campaign in early 1959. Yet, Johnson thought it better to wait. He thought that John Kennedy’s efforts would create a division in the ranks which could then be exploited. Rowe finally joined the Humphrey campaign in frustration, another move which Johnson thought played into his own strategy. Johnson made a late entry in the campaign by July of 1960. This was about his reluctance to leave Washington. Back that time, his rival Kennedy campaign to secure a substantial early advantage among Democratic state party officials. Johnson underestimated Kennedy’s endearing qualities of charm and intelligence, as compared to his own reputation as the more crude and wheeling dealing “Landslide Lyndon.”  Caro suggested that Johnson’s hesitancy to run was about his fear of failure.  Johnson criticized Kennedy because of his youth, poor health, and failure to take a position involving Joseph McCarthy. He formed a “Stop Kennedy” collation with Adlai Stevenson, Stuart Symington, and Hubert Humphrey, but it proved a failure. Johnson received 409 votes on the only ballot at the Democratic convention to Kennedy's 806, and so the convention nominated Kennedy. Tip O'Neill was a representative from Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts at that time, and he recalled that Johnson approached him at the convention and said, "Tip, I know you have to support Kennedy at the start, but I'd like to have you with me on the second ballot." O'Neill replied, "Senator, there's not going to be any second ballot." According to Kennedy’s Special Counsel Myer Feldman and to Kennedy himself, it is impossible to reconstruct the precise manner in which Johnson’s vice-Presidential nomination ultimately took place. John F. Kennedy realized that he couldn’t be elected without support of traditional southern Democrats, most of whom backed Johnson.

Labor leaders were unanimous in their opposition to Johnson. According to Kennedy’s Special Counsel Myer Feldman and to Kennedy himself, it is impossible to reconstruct the precise manner in which Johnson’s vice-presidential nomination ultimately took place. Kennedy did realize that he could not be elected without support of traditional Southern Democrats, most of whom had backed Johnson. Nevertheless, labor leaders were unanimous in their opposition to Johnson. After much back and forth with party leaders and others on the matter, Kennedy did offer Johnson the vice-presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel at 10:15 am on July 14. The morning after he was nominated and Johnson accepted. From that point to the actual nomination that evening, the facts are in dispute in many respects. Convention chairman Le Roy Collins’ declaration of a two-thirds majority in favor by voice is even disputed. Seymour Hersh said that Robert F. Kennedy hate Johnson for his personal attacks on the Kennedy family. Hersh said that his brother offered the position to Johnson out of just courtesy, expecting him to decline.  Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. concurred with Robert Kennedy's version of events, and put forth that John Kennedy would have preferred Stuart Symington as his running-mate, alleging that Johnson teamed with House Speaker Sam Rayburn and pressured Kennedy to favor Johnson.

The biographer Robert Caro offered a different perspective. He wrote that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win what was forecast to be a very close election against Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Johnson was needed on the ticket to help carry Texas and the Southern states. Caro’s research showed that on July 14, John Kennedy started the process while Johnson was still asleep. At 6:30 am, John Kennedy asked Robert Kennedy to prepare an estimate of upcoming electoral votes including Texas. Robert called Pierre Salinger and Kenneth O’Donnell to assist him. Salinger realized the ramifications of counting Texas votes as their own. He asked him whether he was considering a Kennedy-Johnson ticket. Robert replied, “Yes.” Caro contends that it was then that John Kennedy called Johnson called Johnson to arrange a meeting. He also called Pennsylvania governor David L. Lawrence (a Johnson backer) to require that he nominate Johnson for vice President if Johnson were to accept the role. According to Caro, Kennedy and Johnson met and Johnson said that Kennedy would have trouble with Kennedy supporters who were anti–Johnson. Kennedy returned to his suite to announce the Kennedy-Johnson ticket to his closest supporters, including northern political bosses. O'Donnell was angry at what he considered a betrayal by Kennedy, who had previously cast Johnson as anti-labor and anti-liberal.

Afterwards, Robert Kennedy visited labor leaders who were extremely unhappy with the choice of Johnson and, after seeing the depth of labor opposition to Johnson, Robert ran messages between the hotel suites of his brother and Johnson—apparently trying to undermine the proposed ticket without John Kennedy's authorization.  Caro continues in his analysis that Robert Kennedy tried to get Johnson to agree to be the Democratic Party chairman rather than vice president. Johnson refused to accept a change in plans unless it came directly from John Kennedy. Despite his brother's interference, John Kennedy was firm that Johnson was who he wanted as running mate; he met with staffers such as Larry O'Brien, his national campaign manager, to say that Johnson was to be vice president. O'Brien recalled later that John Kennedy's words were wholly unexpected, but that after a brief consideration of the electoral vote situation, he thought "it was a stroke of genius.” When John and Robert Kennedy next saw their father Joe Kennedy, he told them that signing Johnson as running mate was the smartest thing that they had ever done.

During the time of LBJ’s vice presidential run, Johnson also sought a third term in the U.S. Senate.  According to Robert Caro, "On November 8, 1960, Lyndon Johnson won election for both the vice presidency of the United States, on the Kennedy-Johnson ticket, and for a third term as senator (he had Texas law changed to allow him to run for both offices). When he won the vice presidency, he made arrangements to resign from the Senate, as he was required to do under federal law, as soon as it convened on January 3, 1961. (In 1988, Lloyd Bentsen, the vice presidential running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, and a Senator from Texas, took advantage of "Lyndon's law," and was able to retain his seat in the Senate despite Dukakis' loss to George H. W. Bush). Johnson was re-elected Senator with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John Tower's 927,653 (41.1 percent). Fellow Democrat William A. Blakley was appointed to replace Johnson as Senator, but Blakley lost a special election in May 1961 to Tower. Now, he became the Vice President of America back in 1961.

By Timothy