C-SPAN was airing past Republican conventions last week, and I happened to see Barry Goldwater’s speech in ’64. From what little I’d learned of the man in history classes, I didn’t expect to agree with much he said. I was wrong:
He said we should ‘distrust concentrations of power, public or private’, and the conformity they inflict.
He talked about the ‘failure of materialism to satisfy inner needs’.
He said that we should not fear to disturb the status quo.
He talked about government’s duty to earn the respect of the people, rather than demand it.
He bemoaned the loss of diversity and intellectual creativity, and said that ‘we must not see malice in honest differences of opinion.’
He said that we should be proud of our nation, but ‘our example to the world must, like charity, begin at home.’
He lauded the strength of NATO and its contribution to peace and international unity. He spoke of our repairing our relationships with the ‘venerable and vital cultures of the Pacific’, and said that ‘the misunderstandings of centuries’ must be overcome ‘through human sympathy’ to create a prosperity and interdependence between nations.
Admittedly, I’m focusing on the statements that surprised me, but even when he spoke of ‘peace through strength’ and ‘the sanctity of property’ (the kinds of things I expected to hear from Barry Goldwater), he didn’t use them as self-justifying buzzwords. He admitted that there were other viable viewpoints, but explained why he believed these to be the best options.
Overall he struck me as articulate, charismatic, competent, even honorable. Okay, I’m sure someone can post some heinous atrocity of his that will convince me I was duped, but based on that speech I liked the man. Certainly more than I like the men who are running for the office right now. Has Goldwater been given a bad rap by historians, or are modern politicians so lacking in substance that I was simply struck by a candidate who had something, anything to say?
Well, if you are trying to understand why he was so feared and despised by large segments of society in his time, one of his statements which you quoted might go a long way in explaining it-
Barry Goldwater, in most camps, is held in fairly high regard by historians. He was thoughtful and honest.
However, he was considered to be too far right for the times. (One of his slogans was ‘In your heart, you know he’s right’. Some Democrats then would retort 'Yes, far right.) He did not have a particularly progressive stance on civil rights issues, although he was not at all like the race-baiting Southern Democrats of the time. Another problem Goldwater faced was that he wasn’t part of the Republican Establishment of the early 1960s, which had been dominated by East Coast big business types. Because of this, Goldwater didn’t have as much support from his own party as you would expect. Nixon faced this problem also, but he got elected and he tried to get even, which proved to be his downfall.
Ultimately, he was doomed by his views on national security. Some thought he would grant NATO commanders in the field in Europe the power to launch nuclear attacks. LBJ was able to prey on this with the use of the infamous “Daisy Girl” ad which made Johnson seem like a great guy and Goldwater look like an idiot who was going to lob a nuke at the slightest provocation.
In his later years, Goldwater became increasingly more libertarian in his views and was often at odds with the Religious Right as he espoused tolerance of homosexuals and believed that abortion was a personal issue for a woman to decide and not the government’s business.
When Reagan was elected in 1980, many of Goldwater’s ideas were adopted especially the defense buildup.
I had the same experience when listening to Ronald Reagan’s first State of the Union address. He sounded articulate, intelligent, understanding, and of course very, very charismatic.
It was later I realized he had an army of speechwriters working for him, who could put a positive, almost mushily-good spin on anything. He could tell you he was going to veto the current level of Federal school lunch funding, in a way that made you sing “Glory Glory Hallelujah” and be moved to such tears that you knew, you just knew, that anyone who upheld Federal school lunch funding was a cad.
I have since learned to cut through the emotionally-charged rhetoric to the issue the politican is actually talking about. It’s one of the gifts of cynicism I acquired as I aged, I guess.
Certainly he had good writers, but it didn’t strike me as rhetoric at all. In fact, the lack of meaningless, demographically-targeted metaphors is precisely what I reacted to. He seemed to be simply talking about what he believed.
It’s hard to believe he was considered too far right. He was outspoken against to the war in Vietnam (although admittedly that was partly a political move considering Kennedy was in the White House and had started the war). He was pro-NATO and seemed to be promoting relations with China. He talked a good deal about political and cultural tolerance and was decidedly anti-establishment. If a candidate made the same speech today, I have to believe it would be considered much too far left.
If you like the speech, you’ll love his book, The Conscience of a Conservative. The book would seem to be out of print (much of it is outdated), but the audio version is availible. Any halfway decent library should still have the book.
Goldwater blamed most of America’s problems in 1964 on Communism.
He also advocated the removal of Soviet troops from Cuba by use of a naval blockade. He also didn’t believe that the US should stop nuclear testing.
Also in a campaign speech he said, “Forced integration is just as wrong as forced segregation. Our aim … is neither to establish a segregated society nor to establish an integrated society as such. It is to preserve a free society.”
He called attempts to end de facto school segregation by busing pupils into schools as “morally wrong.”
Many argued that Goldwater’s stance on civil rights was way behind the times and his beliefs sounded a lot like Plessy v. Ferguson.
He also hinted that LBJ was guilty of treason for being “soft” on Communism.
Reading BobT’s post, I had to fight back the urge to stand, salute, and start singing “Glory, Glory Hallelujah”. No wonder he gets a lot of respect nowadays.
One thing that helped to do him in was that he was criticized as being an extremist, and instead of arguing against that, he embraced it:
“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit of justice is no vitrtue” or something very close. He was exactly right, but it made people uncomfortable to hear that he considers himself an extremist.
Wow, a whole thread about Barry Goldwater, and I’m too drunk to respond coherently. Dammit. He was as close to an ideal politician as has been witnessed in the 20th Century, IMO. More will probably follow when I am sober.
Gosh, I’m trying to bury Goldwater and it seems like I’m praising him!
Barry was a straight shooter. He was also too far out of the mainstream to ever be elected president. He wasn’t what the country needed in 1964.
BTW, if you want to take a look, you can find a video of the infamous “Daisy Girl” commercial, which only aired once in 1964. It makes the Willie Horton ad seem pretty tame.
I’d say that’s where he was all along, Bob; it’s just that in 1964, abortion and tolerance of gays weren’t issues.
Goldwater was that rarity, an honest politician. He may have cared what people thought of him, but to the extent taht he did, he never let it get in the way of speaking the truth as he saw it. He believed in debating the issues, no matter how controversial, rather than having one set of policies to present to the hard-core support and a sanitized, softened version for public consumption. We could use a few more like that on both sides.
[The Conscience of a Conservative* was the first political book I ever read, back around 1966 or thereabouts. During my early to mid teens, I was a true Goldwater conservative. My convictions have moved considerably since then; I took history courses and realized that, in effect, Goldwater conservatism, at least with respect to economic and power relationships, had already been thoroughly tried in this country in the late nineteenth century.
But there is no arguing that that slender volume has changed the face of politics in this country. There are few things stronger than a clear and cogent statement and defense of one’s core beliefs. I’d love to see any elected politician, from Tom DeLay to Bernie Sanders, put out something like that today.
The fact that Goldwater was an honest and upright person and a straight-shooter when it came to politics did not cancel out that there were millions of voters (like my parents) who were scared shitless by home.
It wasn’t just the warhawk charge. Goldwater was seen as being against Social Security, Medicare, welfare (in those days they called it “helping the poor”), unions, civil rights legislation and just about every initiative the Democrats had been advocating for the last 30 years. For a generation of people who had grown up during the Depression, and whose parents were now retiring thanks to Social Security, that was quite enough.
I don’t think Barry Goldwater could have taken to the stump in 1964 and espoused gay rights. However, LBJ couldn’t have done that either. I doubt any major party candidate mentioned it until McGovern in 1972.
Goldwater always considered himself a conservative, a true conservative. Here is one quote of his from 1994, “A lot of so-called conservatives today don’t know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I
believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to a pregnant woman, not up to the Pope or some do-gooders or the religious right.”
One can also argue that Goldwater was able to stick to his principles in the 1964 election because he knew that there was very little chance for any Republican to win that election.
Privatizing Social Security wasn’t a highly regarded idea in 1964, nor was referring to civil rights legislation as a violation of property rights.
Other articles I read described Goldwater as a liberal, in the Gladstone sense.
Another lengthy examination of the 1964 presidential campaign said that Goldwater lost because it was one of the few presidential campaigns where foreign policy was a primary issue. Johnson was able to portray Goldwater as too extreme to run American foreign policy and Goldwater did little to refute the charge.
Goldwater was accused of saying that he favored the use of low-yield nuclear devices in Vietnam to help with defoliation, although that turned out to be a misquote. However, once the story got out, most people seemed to believe it.
The 1964 Republican Convention was also the mirror image of the 2000 Convention. It was quite contentious and Goldwater’s supporters tried to shout down Nelson Rockefeller when he was speaking and Rockefeller excoriated Goldwater from the podium.
If Kennedy had lived, the 1964 campaign probably would have been much closer as Kennedy’s approval ratings were going down in 1963 and he had little support in the South. However, Johnson was able to not only garner sympathy votes for Kennedy, but was also considered more acceptable to Southern voters.
Goldwater might have had a better run in 1964 if Kennedy had lived.
FWIW, I have a 1963 book (I think it’s The Case for Goldwater…) which argues for his winnability. The electoral plan outlined was to carry the West, Midwest, and parts of the South and squeak through with about 280-300 electoral votes. The eastern seabord and the industrial northeast was to be written off.
Goldwater later wrote that he realized after the GOP convention that there was no way he would win. Partly because Americans wouldn’t want three presidents in such short a time and now he was running against a “ghost”–the memory of JFK.
Goldwater’s 1964 plan sounds a lot like Bush’s 2000 plan except that Bush probably can’t win California and Gore will lose some states along the Great Lakes.
The 1964 election showed that the “Solid South” of the Democratic Party was disappearing and a new coalition of states was needed to win.
