Barry Goldwater was probably the most important loser in the history of American presidential elections. Although Lyndon Baines Johnson easily defeated him in the
1964 race, Goldwater fundamentally reshaped politics in the United States. As biographer Robert Alan Goldberg shows, Goldwater helped Republicans cut their demographic and financial ties to the Northeast and pushed their influence to the South and West. More important, however, he ushered in the modern
conservative movement as a genuine political force. Goldberg, a professor of history at the University of Utah, writes as a political liberal who holds deep sympathies for Goldwater. During his 1964 campaign, a popular Goldwater slogan was: "In your heart, you know he's right." Goldberg isn't trying to convince readers of this, but it's hard to come away from his book without thinking he still could teach his country a thing or two. --John J. Miller
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Background Information
Barry Goldwater was a conservative senator from Arizona who captured the hearts and support of the conservative movement and was nominated for President in 1964. In 1964, the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater, an archconservative, who was roundly defeated by Lyndon Johnson. The conservative movement began as a reaction to the dominance of liberalism at the federal level during the Democratic administrations from FDR to LBJ.
