Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona in 1909. His family owned a department store, which he dropped out of college to work at.
Goldwater began his political career when he was elected to the city council of Phoenix in 1949. In 1952, Goldwater ran for a position in the Senate, which he won and occupied for two terms. Goldwater gained much of his popularity as a conservative republican. As he believed in limited government, personal freedoms, and limiting welfare programs, Goldwater got many votes from the anti-communists in Arizona. One example of how he appealed to anti-communist voters was that he charged democrats with creating a quasi-socialist state by instituting welfare programs.
In 1964, Goldwater decided to run for president against the incumbent Lindon B Johnson. As a conservative, Goldwater pushed his platform as the more "American" alternative to Johnson's "great society" insinuating that Johnson was soft on communism.
As one Saturday Evening Post article points out, Goldwater "has consistently taken positions
nicely calculated to alienate all the major voting blocs in
the country". Obviously there are skeptics in every election cycle, but in this case the skeptics turned out to be correct. Goldwater only won six states for a total of 52 electoral votes. Clearly Goldwater was successful at alienating voters, because in the election, Johnson won 61% of the popular vote, the biggest landslide since 1820 (Monroe's re-election).
Despite his loss, Goldwater represented an important shift in the Republican platform. Before, republicans had been moderates, but Goldwater reframed the party to be more conservative. Goldwater ran on a platform of reducing the size and role of the federal government while expanding state and local responsibilities. In addition, Goldwater called for a re-centering of unions, which he believed had become too powerful, and a referendum on Johnson's Great Society. In this capacity, Goldwater was important in determining the future of the republican party's platform.
Sources:
4president.org
britannica.com
saturdayeveningpost.com
Goldwater was certainly on the right side of the political spectrum during his campaign, but in time, he softened on his policies. And, while he didn't win the election, he was influential on other Republican candidates, as you said. I recall that both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were fans of his beliefs.
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