Back in 1964, the Republican Party nominated Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona to run again President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ’64 election that fall was one of the most lopsided elections in the US history, with Pres. Johnson winning with over 61% of the popular vote and 486 votes from the electoral college. Goldwater only won in six states, Arizona and 5 in the deep south that were former Democratic strongholds. Although Goldwater was able to rally he most conservative party members, he lacked support from moderates and was labeled a racist for his vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. His jokes about ‘sawing off the Eastern seaboard” and dropping a nuclear bomb on the Kremlin’s men’s room didn’t help his image, either. It also gave the Johnson campaign ammunition for ads like this:
Last night MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewed the actor, Bill Bogert, who really is a Republican, about the 1964 anti-Goldwater campaign its startling similarities with the current presidential election.
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