1 November 2024

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch on current attempts to form a more perfect Union.

Although early voting has been going on for some time, officially November 5th sees the 60th US presidential election.

For some reason, I am reminded of the 45th such contest, held sixty years ago on November 3rd 1964. It was between the incumbent Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the Republican, Senator Barry Goldwater. Eventually, it was a landslide victory for Johnson who won all but six states and got over sixty percent of the popular vote.

Despite his defeat, the Goldwater candidacy was the beginning of the Republican Party’s shift to the so-called right and the Arizona Senator’s rejection of the legacy of President Roosevelt’s 1933 interventionist New Deal. His championing of small government and individual freedoms ignited the party’s ultra-conservative wing for decades to come.

During the campaign, Goldwater was criticised by the Democrats and much of the media who said that he had “extremist” views – such as making some Social Security voluntary and suggesting that nuclear weapons could be used in the war in Vietnam. To combat this and to attempt to make the point that his views were not that different from most ordinary Americans, Goldwater adopted this campaign slogan:

In your heart you know he’s right.

Unfortunately for Goldwater, his opponents’ pithy response was more memorable:

In your guts you know he’s nuts.

Johnson’s campaign slogan was pertinent if dull:

The stakes are too high for you to stay at home.

Plus ça change.