On May 7, 3:30*pm, samsloan wrote:
On May 7, 12:53 pm, wrote:

On May 7, 1:47 pm, samsloan wrote:

It seems that you are right, thank you.

Goldwater won the nomination on July 15, 1964. The "Extremism" speech
came the next day on July 16.

Sam Sloan

* You're welcome. Glad to see you open to correction on something.

This certainly explains why I found nothing noteworthy in the speech.

The "Extremism" speech is one of the most famous and remembered
speeches in political history, right below the Gettysburg Address and
the "Day that shall live in Infamy" speech. I cannot think of any
others.

It was also the biggest blunder. Goldwater was forever branded as an
extremist. He was never able to shake that off.

It comes up today, with videos of the little girl watching an atomic
bomb of off in her minds eye, which was the Johnson Election Campaign
ad that was the counter to the extremist views of Goldwater.

This explains why Goldwater got wiped out in the election whereas
Nixon and Reagan who had similar views got elected.

Goldwater alienated many members of his own party with that speech.
However, that 1964 election marked a turning point in American
politics, a fundamental shift, the benefits of which the Republican
Party has been reaping ever since.
For nearly a century, ever since the Civil War, the southern states
had been firmly in the Democratic column. Most Democratic presidential
candidates could count on most or all the electoral votes of the
"Solid South." However, the civil rights legislation that Lyndon
Johnson put through Congress in 1964 and 1965, ending legally-
sanctioned racial segregation and race-based restrictions on voting
rights, combined with Goldwater's opposition to these acts, turned the
South away from the Democratic Party and toward the Republican.
Goldwater carried several of the traditionally Democratic southern
states in 1964, due to what was called "white backlash."
The South has been solid for the Republican Party ever since. Black
voters have leaned strongly toward the Democrats, but the white
majority votes Republican. It's not surprising that the only two
Democrats to win the presidency since 1964, Carter and Clinton, have
been Southerners.