AZ: The History of Arizona podcast

Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign had a lot going against it - a gaffe-prone candidate, a fractured party, bad polls, and a popular incumbent opponent - and then the other side hit it with one of the most infamous political ads in U.S. history.

Barry Goldwater’s path to the Republican Party’s nomination was brought with gaffes, mistake, bad press, and opponents determined to stop him. Yet, somehow, he got past all of that … only to utter some of the most infamous lines in American political history.

For four straight years, Barry Goldwater denied that he would run for president. Sometimes he meant it, sometimes he did not. But in the end, it was the following he gathered and the machine he built that made the decision for him.

As Barry Goldwater took his seat in the Senate, his unwavering stances brought him into conflict with both those on the left and with the leader of his own party. But it did mark him as the head of a growing cult of conservatism, for which Goldwater would even provide a volume of scripture.

14 years before his nationwide electoral defeat, Barry Goldwater was a successful businessman, city councilor, and Republican organizer who decided to take a bold swing and run for the U.S. Senate.