Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution by Lee Edwards

Author:Lee Edwards [Edwards, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621574002
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2015-07-06T04:00:00+00:00

Goldwater campaigned as he had in California rather than New Hampshire, making two or three major speeches a day in heavily populated areas and depending on the news media to carry his message to the people beyond. Typically, he would arrive at an airport in his specially outfitted B–27, officially called “Yia Bi Kin” (Navajo for “House in the Sky”), and wave to the waiting faithful. A motorcade, including some fifty to sixty press, radio, and TV journalists, would proceed to the city five or ten miles away where a large, enthusiastic crowd would hear him speak on the steps of the city hall or courthouse or perhaps at a ballpark. The senator was relaxed, informal, and rarely indulged in the shouts and flourishes of political orators, as did Hubert Humphrey, but his honesty and conviction were palpable. Often, his dry sense of humor broke through, as at the Springfield (Illinois) State Fair. On the platform with the senator were Congressman Ed Derwinski, who at well over 200 pounds was literally the most prominent Polish-American in the House of Representatives, and Derwinski’s tall, attractive, red-haired wife. Barry Goldwater, Jr., who loved being a bachelor, was struck by Mrs. Derwinski and asked his father whether he knew who she was. Goldwater replied, “Barry, she’s just the girl for you—if you can get past 240 pounds of Polack.”9

President Johnson was a far different candidate, restless, driven by his dream of an historic landslide. He conducted what one observer called “the most peripatetic campaign in the history of the Republic. Eighteen hours a day . . . twenty speeches a week . . . motorcades . . . dinners . . . handshakes. Andy Jackson in a jetliner.” He mixed stump speeches with pressing the flesh at every opportunity. He wrapped himself in the flag and quoted the Bible and promised something for every city, town, and community he visited.10

Goldwater talked about the “forgotten American” (the central theme of his 1961 Senate speech), the citizen who was alarmed at his loss of identity and freedom in a society accelerating toward a welfare state. He addressed the millions of registered voters who had not voted in 1960 because they had seen no real choice between Nixon and Kennedy. The senator and his advisers believed that if he could arouse these forgotten Americans, he might manage “as staggering an upset as Harry Truman accomplished in 1948.”11

He talked about “lawlessness and immorality” to awaken Americans to the sickness in society that had caused a 500 percent increase in crime in the past four years. He talked to those who, libertarian like himself, resented being told by politicians “how to behave, how to think, how to live, what to study, and even where or if to pray.” He repeatedly cited Johnson’s failure to recognize the real threat of communism and to fight to restore to the states their rightful power. These powerful broad-based issues, in a normal year, would have won votes across the country, not just in the South, and turned the 1964 campaign into a real contest between the two candidates.

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