Barry Goldwater

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–65, 1969–87) and the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1964 election. Despite losing the election by a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He was a vocal opponent to desegregation and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, believing it was an overreach of federal government. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement. Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought through the conservative coalition against the New Deal coalition. He mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican primaries. Though raised an Episcopalian, he was the first candidate with ethnically Jewish heritage to be nominated for President by a major American party (his father was Jewish). Goldwater's conservative campaign platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, bringing down many conservative Republican office-holders as well. Jeff Fishel says, "The conservative faction of the party was on the defensive as a result of the magnitude of the election losses." Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1969, and specialized in defense policy, bringing to the table his experience as a senior officer in the Air Force Reserve. In 1974, as an elder statesman of the party, Goldwater successfully urged President Richard Nixon to resign when evidence of a cover-up in the Watergate scandal became overwhelming and impeachment was imminen