Word: godwin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Despite staunch support from Senator Harry Byrd's Democratic machine in Virginia's gubernatorial election last month, Lieutenant Governor Mills Godwin won only after beating down a strong challenge by Republican Candidate A. Linwood Holton, who captured 38% of the votes-and proved that the state could no longer be considered a Byrd sanctuary. Last week brought even more impressive evidence of change in the Old Dominion. The occasion was a special election to fill the state senate seat vacated by Harry F. Byrd Jr., 51, whose appointment to the U.S. Senate last month in place...
Curiously, the Governor-elect Mills Godwin has abandoned white supremacy altogether, and has even hinted that he might step-up spending for things like education and public services. Godwin's sharp turn away from the seventy-year-old Machine ideology is the most concrete sign of the end of Byrd's leadership...
...Godwin campaign suggests that the Machine is adapting to new conditions. Godwin lost votes to a third party Conservative in the Southside, the heart of rural segregationist sentiment in Virginia. He gained a huge percentage of votes from urban Negroes, most of whom had voted Republican before Goldwater. He ran fairly well in the city and suburban areas in general, where the Machine has always been weak...
Virginia may see other political contests in the near future. Senator A. Willis Robertson is 78; Governor-elect Godwin is probably eager to win a Senate seat and currently, all-Democrats from the Byrds to the AFL-CIO are happy with him. The Republicans, if they can recapture the Negro vote, may even be able to win statewide election. There is every possibility, then, that Virginia may send more men to the U.S. Senate in the next five years than it has in the last forty-five...
...just too much for us. It's a helluva thing to overcome." The "Goldwater thing," of course, is the residue of resentment with which most Negroes still regard Barry Goldwater's stand on civil rights in the 1964 campaign. While Holton loyally supported Goldwater last year, Godwin whistle-stopped through Virginia with Mrs. Lyndon Johnson on her Lady Bird Special. To many Negroes and liberals, a vote for Godwin was simply a vote of confidence for the Great Society, whose goals he endorsed. Diehard white supremacists from both parties bolted to the conservative candidate, William Story, a Birchite...