Extreme Conventions: San Francisco, 1964, and Cleveland, 2016

In the aftermath of the 1964 Republican National Convention, in San Francisco, it wasn’t hard to assess the damage that the gathering had done to the Party and to its nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater, of Arizona. It had been an awful Convention, and its worst moments had been on television. One bad episode came when Governor Nelson Rockefeller, of New York, who was the runner-up in the primaries, tried to speak and faced a torrent of jeers and boos. Another involved a doomed effort to promote the candidacy of William Scranton, the widely admired governor of Pennsylvania, who was nominated by Milton Eisenhower, the former President’s brother. Goldwater easily won on the first ballot, but Scranton by then had written a furious open letter in which he attacked “Goldwaterism,” saying that it had “come to stand for a whole crazy-quilt collection of absurd and dangerous positions.” The worst moment, though, came when Goldwater delivered his acceptance speech. The term “Presidential” wasn’t in vogue, but Party leaders hoped that this champion of the Republican right would evolve into a mainstream candidate in time for the general election. Goldwater, though, had his own ideas, and in his acceptance speech uttered two sentences that, even fifty-some years later, are lovingly remembered by students of American politics: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”