GOP strategist Steve Schmidt: Trumps defense of Roy Moore exposes a profound moral rot...

[Pope George Ringo II]

41. Also, as long as we're talking about changes from '64

The frank truth is that in '64 you could very nearly have run Stalin against George Washington and the only important question would have been which one of them had the (D) after his name and JFK's ghost on his side. In much the same way that Bush was on the 2008 GOP ticket in a negative way, the sheer emotional "JFK would want it" element is hard to undervalue as a positive for Johnson. A part of the reason Goldwater got clobbered so spectacularly is due to that fluke of running against a popular President's ghost, rather than anything genuinely systemic in the parties or inherent in the actual candidates. The GOP ignored that unique situation and after their analysis decided a complete re-invention of its brand was in order after that slaughter, and the result worked...for a while...before becoming progressively more disgusting until it became completely unacceptable to any reasonable person.