1960 United States presidential election

====Democratic convention====
The [[1960 Democratic National Convention]] was held in Los Angeles, California. In the week before the convention opened, Kennedy received two new challengers, when Lyndon B. Johnson, the powerful Senate Majority Leader, and Adlai Stevenson, the party's nominee in 1952 and 1956, officially announced their candidacies. However, neither Johnson nor Stevenson was a match for the talented and highly efficient Kennedy campaign team led by Robert Kennedy. Johnson challenged Kennedy to a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations, which Kennedy accepted. Most observers believed that Kennedy won the debate, and Johnson was unable to expand his delegate support beyond the South. Stevenson's failure to launch his candidacy publicly until the week of the convention meant that many liberal delegates who might have supported him were already pledged to Kennedy, and Stevenson – despite the energetic support of former First Lady [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] – could not break their allegiance. Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot.

Then, in a move that surprised many, Kennedy asked Johnson to be his running mate. He realized that he could not be elected without the support of traditional [[Southern Democrats]], most of whom had backed Johnson. He offered Johnson the vice presidential nomination at the [[Millennium Biltmore Hotel|Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel]] at 10:15&nbsp;a.m. on July 14, 1960, the morning after being nominated for president.<ref name="Caro 2012, pp. 121–135. JFK offers vice presidency to LBJ">[[Robert Caro|Caro, Robert A.]] (2012). ''[[The Passage of Power]]'', pp. 121–135. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. {{ISBN|978-0-679-40507-8}}</ref> [[Robert F. Kennedy]], who hated Johnson for his attacks on the Kennedy family, and who favored labor leader [[Walter Reuther]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://time.com/3491219/behind-the-picture-jfk-and-rfk-los-angeles-july-1960/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141114201919/http://time.com/3491219/behind-the-picture-jfk-and-rfk-los-angeles-july-1960/|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 14, 2014|title=Head to Head: JFK and RFK, Los Angeles, July 1960|last=Cosgrave|first=Ben|date=May 24, 2014|website=Time Magazine|access-date=March 19, 2018}}</ref> later said that his brother offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and did not predict him to accept it. When he did accept, Robert Kennedy tried to change Johnson's mind, and failed.<ref>[[Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.]], ''Robert Kennedy and His Times'' (1978), pp. 206–211.</ref>

Biographers [[Robert Caro]] and [[W. Marvin Watson]] offer a different perspective: they write that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win what was forecast to be a very close race against Nixon and Lodge. Johnson was needed on the ticket to help carry votes from Texas and the Southern United States. Caro's research showed that on July 14, Kennedy started the process, while Johnson was still asleep. At 6:30&nbsp;a.m., Kennedy asked his brother to prepare an estimate of upcoming electoral votes, "including Texas".<ref name="Caro 2012, pp. 121–135. JFK offers vice presidency to LBJ"/> Robert Kennedy called [[Pierre Salinger]] and [[Kenneth O'Donnell]] to assist him. Realizing the ramifications of counting Texas votes as their own, Salinger asked him whether he was considering a Kennedy–Johnson ticket, and Robert replied, "Yes".<ref name="Caro 2012, pp. 121–135. JFK offers vice presidency to LBJ"/> Between 9 and 10&nbsp;am, John Kennedy called Pennsylvania governor [[David L. Lawrence]], a Johnson backer, to request that Lawrence nominate Johnson for vice president if Johnson were to accept the role, and then went to Johnson's suite to discuss a mutual ticket at 10:15&nbsp;am. John Kennedy then returned to his suite to announce the Kennedy–Johnson ticket to his closest supporters and Northern political bosses. He accepted the congratulations of Ohio Governor [[Michael DiSalle]], Connecticut Governor [[Abraham A. Ribicoff]], New York City mayor [[Robert F. Wagner Jr.]], and Chicago mayor [[Richard J. Daley]]. Lawrence said that "Johnson has the strength where you need it most"; he then left to begin writing the nomination speech.<ref name="Caro 2012, pp. 121–135. JFK offers vice presidency to LBJ"/> O'Donnell remembers being angry at what he considered a betrayal by John Kennedy, who had previously cast Johnson as anti-labor and anti-liberal. Afterward, Robert Kennedy visited with labor leaders who were extremely unhappy with the choice of Johnson, and, after seeing the depth of labor opposition to Johnson, he ran messages between the hotel suites of his brother and Johnson, apparently trying to undermine the proposed ticket without John Kennedy's authorization and 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, and met with staffers such as [[Larry O'Brien]], his national campaign manager, to say 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".<ref name="Caro 2012, pp. 121–135. JFK offers vice presidency to LBJ"/>