The Goldwater Talking Point

[Draggingtree]

:

 

The Goldwater Talking Point

By Eric Erickson
December 31, 2015

 

In 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater lost the presidential election to Lyndon Johnson. Since then, Barry Goldwater's loss has become a talking point about why conservatives cannot win. Even now, both the media and Republican establishment are saying the most conservative candidates in the 2016 field cannot win because of Barry Goldwater's example.

 

For the record, Barry Goldwater was not going to win in 1964 and it had nothing to do with his conservatism. The election came less than a year after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy. In the 1960 election, Kennedy had barely beaten Richard Nixon. By 1964, pollsters struggled to find Americans who were willing to admit they had voted against Kennedy. In November of 1964, Americans were not going to throw out of office the man who was sworn in as President on Air Force One with Jacqueline Kennedy beside him and John Kennedy's body in a coffin in the back of the plane.