Goldwater Unplugged

I HAD been forewarned. A few days before joining Barry Goldwater’s staff in the summer of ’64, I asked Mike Bernstein, one of the senator’s top aides, if there was anything about his boss I should know before climbing aboard the campaign plane. Indeed there was, said Bernstein: Goldwater, despite appearances, lacked sound political instincts.

Given the fact that our candidate had just mopped the floor of the San Francisco Cow Palace with his political opposition, this seemed an odd, even perverse, appraisal of the man’s talent for gathering votes. Then Mike, who was devoted to Goldwater, told me a vintage Barry story.

VG

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Victor Gold

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Barry Goldwater

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I HAD been forewarned. A few days before joining Barry Goldwater’s staff in the summer of ’64, I asked Mike Bernstein, one of the senator’s top aides, if there was anything about his boss I should know before climbing aboard the campaign plane. Indeed there was, said Bernstein: Goldwater, despite appearances, lacked sound political instincts.

Given the fact that our candidate had just mopped the floor of the San Francisco Cow Palace with his political opposition, this seemed an odd, even perverse, appraisal of the man’s talent for gathering votes. Then Mike, who was devoted to Goldwater, told me a vintage Barry story.