Goldwater in 1964

In this TL the war in Vietnam gets much worse much quicker. With the death toll on the rise and LBJ's popularity sinking quickly, Goldwater campaigns on a promise of a withdrawel from Vietnam immediately and a focus on international relations with China and the USSR. The election is a landslide for Goldwater, who wins 61.4% of the popular vote and all states but DC and Rhode Island. Along with his own landslide election, for the first time since the Great Depression, Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress. Goldwater then rolls back much of the Fair Deal from the Truman years while still supporting the ERA. He greatly repairs the strained relationship with the Soviet Union and in May 5, 1968 he becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit China, greatly easing China-US tensions. He takes an approach of detante with China but takes a much more hard-headed stance with the Soviet Union, and kicks off the Arms Race. The US lands on the moon on September 4, 1967 and Goldwater approves grants to NASA to build a permanent moon base by 1972 and land on Mars by 1978. Despite his greatly increased funding towards defense and the military, as well as science, President Goldwater manages to balance the budget every year while also cutting income taxes and gas taxes significantly every year.