Waiting for the Pendulum

...Third, the moderates, except for Rockefeller and his supporters, did not actively resist the Goldwater campaign...

...In most Republican primaries, and in many state convention delegate elections, Goldwater or convention delegates pledged to him either were not opposed, or were opposed by delegates pledged to no one...

...There can be little doubt that the great majority of registered Republicans are closer in their general views to the Republican moderates than they are to Barry Goldwater and the Right-wing GOP...

...In many ways, in his Protestantism and as an entrepreneur in a middle-sized city, he is one of them and their values are his values...

...In the East and parts of the Mid-west, where the party suffered defeat even in traditionally solid Republican territory, one may expect a total rejection of the Goldwater strategy by local politicians...

...He did relatively well in the South and southern parts of the country, including southern California and Arizona...

...Evidence of this may be found in reports that various campaign committees controlled by the Senator's followers have come out of the election with a total of more than $1 million in the kitty...

...And if the primary motivation of the latter is concern with issues, they by necessity will be much more dogmatic than the bulk of the party's voters...

...There is no section in the country in which strong opposition to the Birch Society among Republicans does not far outweigh support...

...They have lost much of their ability to recruit workers and able secondary leaders from those who seek to gain personally from politics...

...Margaret Smith spoke frequently for the extension of Social Security...

...Ordinarily, parties have the reverse problem...

...Hence, when primaries are not contested, the better organized and more militant Rightists dominate...

...But in the absence of a formal ideological conflict in the primaries, political beliefs do not determine who represents the party at a convention...

...Studies of Congressional and state legislative behavior indicate a growth in party coherence among elected representatives...

...Nixon, who presumably would like to be a Presidential candidate again, covered the country speaking for the ticket, but this time took the high road...

...but did not suppress their own much more liberal viewpoints...

...Thus the picture (admittedly very overgeneralized) of the Goldwater voter which emerges is that of a middle-aged, white traditionalist Protestant who lives or grew up in a small city or town and is selfemployed or working for a relatively small business...

...But decline and weakness can be a spur to activity, and 1964 was a high point for the Rightist groups...

...The defectors were concentrated disproportionately in both the large Eastern metropolitan centers and the older stable Western cities, such as San Francisco and Portland, whose social structures and type of Republicanism resemble those of the East...

...Opinion studies reveal that this secondary leadership of the Republican party has been considerably to the right of the party's electorate for many years...

...Some Republicans, such as Eisenhower, Nixon, Romney and Scranton, did not resist Goldwater until too late, if at all: Perhaps they were so certain he could not be nominated that they did not want to antagonize his supporters, hoping to keep them in the party after the convention, or to secure their backing for the nomination after it became clear that Goldwater would lose the convention...

...In the long run, the Republicans' best hopes rest on the possibility that the Democrats will press further to the Left, and thus arouse opposition among moderates regardless of party...

...The moderates in both parties have faced a recurrent battle with their ideological extremes for control of nominations and party posts...

...Thus Goldwater was the candidate of a highly active ideological minority of Republicans...

...The first Gallup Poll immediately after the Republican convention reported 64 per cent for Johnson and 36 per cent for Goldwater among the decided voters, a figure that remained fairly consistent throughout the campaign...

...On returning home, many Goldwater activists continued to behave in the same vein, repelling the moderates from the party...

...First, they beat a collection of nobodies with somebody...

...Buckley's interest in a continual campaign of conservative education rather than in winning elections apparently is shared by many in the Goldwater leadership...

...This is clear from a massive variety of public opinion data collected by every polling organization, including those which have worked for the Goldwater organization...

...This growing replacement of machine followers by people with an interest in liberal or conservative ideologies has brought the American party system somewhat closer to the British, although the two retain many important differences...

...At the local party level, this trend means that party leaders necessarily concerned with securing the votes of the non-ideoological moderate center must also seek to retain the allegiance of those who do the party's work...

...William F. Buckley Jr...

...But any serious attempt to assess the election results and their implications must begin by stressing that in 1964, as in most previous balloting, the major factor determining how people voted was their traditional party allegiance...

...In the South, where the GOP gained votes and members because of Goldwater's wooing of segregationist backing, one may anticipate continued strong Goldwater activity and control of the party...

...It suggests widespread and concerted support for the radical Right, which, even though defeated, is now in a position to advance its beliefs through control of one of the major parties...

...And if the support for Goldwater policies represents a minority within the COP, an even smaller minority supports the radical Rightists...

...And the 1964 results indicate that the Democrats now enjoy an even larger lead among young voters...

...Being human, the Goldwater leaders are not willing to admit that they were wrong, that a Rightist candidate cannot be elected...

...Opinion data indicate that, at best, groups such as the John Birch Society have the endorsement of much less than 10 per cent of the population...

...What will now happen to the Goldwater supporters...

...It could still hope to win office as a result of major events, Democratic blunders, or simply through the swing of the electoral pendulum, a process in which the incumbent party inevitably alienates many voters who come to feel that any change would be good...

...Not surprisingly, if we examine which Republicans voted for Goldwater and which chose Johnson, a pattern emerges that reflects closely the division of Goldwater supporters and opponents within the GOP before his nomination...

...One can be certain that the Goldwaterites will be out fighting for party nominations in state and local elections, and for victory again at the Presidential convention in 1968...

...Since each year there are proportionately fewer white Americans of non-metropolitan origins and traditionalist Protestant beliefs, Goldwater support was not broad-based but was essentially derived from groups which are declining in significance in American society...

...While he spoke for Goldwater, he defended the integrity of Johnson and Humphrey, and implicitly rebuked those in the Republican party who tried to describe both men as irresponsible Left-wingers or pro-Communists...

...Many Republican politicians arc rightly angered by the fact that these funds were not made available for local campaigning...

...Clearly men like Javits, Kuchel, Case, Romney and Rockefeller, who sat out the Presidential election, if they did not oppose Goldwater...

...Notwithstanding [its electoral defeats] it was deeply influential in American politics...

...For most of these voters, the choice had been made many years back...

...Since most Goldwater Republicans are manifestly interested more in propagation of their point of view than in any statistical blitzkriegs, it will take time to measure the full effect of Goldwater's candidacy on the public philosophy...

...politicians in Vermont, New Hampshire, Kansas, Illinois, and Ohio who are accustomed to winning elections are not likely to follow Goldwater and his ideologists down to oblivion...

...Second, the rank-and-file secondary leadership stratum of the Republican party is composed largely of men who adhere to a Rightwing or laissez-faire version of Republicanism...

...In Britain then, as in the United States today, opinion polls showed that the ideological extremists who dominated the convention repiesented a small minority of party supporters...

...Another indicated source of Goldwater and Right-wing backing are the members of the more traditionalist or fundamentalist Protestant churches, many of which, of course, have centers of strength where the Rightists find their support...

...Between now and 1968 they must show that they can act as an organized tendency, much as they did from 1940-52 in securing the nominations of Willkie...

...Party membership or identification affects vote decision in much the same way as do religious or ethnic affiliation and social class position...

...Seymour Martin Lipset is the author of Political Man, The First New Nation and several other books...

...The result, of course, is that the Republican party is in shambles...

...The small vote received by Conservative party Senatorial candidate Henry Paolucci in New York is a good indicator of the weakness of the politics of spite, even in the midst of the Goldwater campaign...

...Before Goldwater was nominated, the Gallup Poll reported that twice as many Americans thought of themselves as Democrats than as Republicans—the highest such lead the Democrats have enjoyed since opinion polling began in the mid'30s...

...My guess, therefore, is that Goldwater would accept the nomination of a moderate in 1968, provided he is a man who worked for him this year...

...If I understand Buckley correctly, he seems to recognize that the tendency he represents is unlikely to retain control of the party's Presidential nomination...

...It gave Rightwing conservatism a bigger audience than any radical movement has had in American history...

...If they lose, however, it is doubtful that any significant number of them will secede to form a third party, or will boycott the polls out of spite or conviction...

...This is probably the first time in modern history that a Presidential campaign has ended with a surplus...

...Hatfield and Scranton campaigned for Goldwater...

...Should this occur, the Republican party could retain its position as an alternative government...

...Goldwater lost disproportionately among large business executives and professionals, but seemingly did much better among proprietors and employes of small and medium sized businesses...

...Left-wing and pacifist groups won a majority at the party convention and defeated the moderate policies favored by Hugh Gaitskell with respect to unilateral disarmament and a commitment to extensive nationalization...

...After all, major parties exist to get elected...

...For moderates to keep effective control in a post-machine era requires that they make conscious use of all their political resources: relations with mass organizations, the press, permanent organization of their activities, and the like...

...Avowed anti-Goldwater Republican candidates such as Keating and Romney received the votes of almost all Goldwater voters...

...The behavior of the Goldwater supporters at the convention—booing moderate leaders, insisting on a severely ideological platform, making no gestures to the defeated moderates—indicated the strength which strong convictions based on ideological intransigence can confer...

...Their cities contain a disproportionate number of upwardly mobile nouveaux riches, along with members of other strata who are relatively new arrivals from smaller communities and rural areas...

...the younger the age group, the more Democrats among them...

...The Goldwater forces won the nomination for a few basic reasons...

...When they took over in July they could not restrain themselves, and Goldwater did little to hold them back...

...They include realtors, automobile dealers, self-employed professionals and owners of various other middle-level businesses...

...In his first newspaper column evaluating the defeat...

...As in 1960, he would call on his followers to back the more conservative of the two Presidential candidates, and to continue to press the party and the nation in a conservative direction...

...The most interesting fact about 1964 electoral behavior may be not that so many voted for Goldwater, but rather that over onequarter of the normally Republican voters went Democratic...

...This minority, as we have observed, was made up largely of groups who are loyal to the values of an earlier America and are on the decline...

...He is preparing Goldwater's followers for the role of radical conservative gadfly within the Republican camp...

...The real issue for the Republican future, therefore, is not what the Goldwaterites will do...

...editor of the National Review, the main intellectual organ of Goldwater conservatism, reminded his disconsolate readers to "consider the fate of the Socialist party in American elections between 1900 and 1932...

...It appears that many of the moderate Republican leaders recognize this as the lesson of 1964, and that systematic efforts to re-establish and institutionalize moderate control of the party are now under way...

...they spend every cent they can beg or borrow in the hope of electing a few more candidates...

...And from their point of view the 1964 campaign was a great success rather than a failure...

...They prefer to blame their Republican party opponents for the catastrophe...

...In such areas, the politicians who backed or accepted Goldwater will probably seek a modus vivendi with the moderates and favor a new strategy for 1966 and 1968...

...Thus about three-quarters of those who think of themselves as Republicans voted for Goldwater and Miller, and the overwhelming majority of Democrats (90 per cent or more) voted for Johnson and Humphrey...

...Where will they find a party or candidate of their persuasion...

...If, however, the Democrats continue to occupy the broad center as they did in the 1964 elections, one may anticipate continued Republican weakness...

...Governors Mark Hatfield of Oregon and William Scranton of Pennsylvania, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, former Vice President Nixon and others campaigned for Goldwater without adopting his political philosophy...

...but what the Republican moderates will do...

...will not be in a position to do this...

...The more committed and active among the hard-core Goldwater supporters will presumably continue the struggle much as radical ideologues have always done...

...To capture the party and win elections in the near future will require moderate leaders who can conciliate Goldwater's supporters...

...His final vote of 39 per cent represents about 11 per cent less than Nixon's vote in 1960, and 10 per cent less than the support received by Republican Congressional candidates in 1962...

...Both parties must increasingly fill their ranks with men whose motivation foi political participation is a concern about issues...

...As many past observers of American politics have noted, and as the opinion surveys of the last quarter of a century have documented, most voters do not change their allegiance from one election to the next...

...The liberal Democratic majority in Congress may do just this, and produce a conservative reaction which will help the Republicans electorally...

...When faced with a choice between a moderate Republican and a liberal Democrat, the Rightists will vote for the Republican much as they have done in the past...

...This will require systematic work similar to that of the Goldwater organization...

...All signs, though, are against the Republicans regaining a position of parity with their rivals in the foreseeable future...

...These men who serve on local committees, who attend local, state, and consequently national conventions as delegates, tend to come from small business occupations which permit them free time for politics...

...In a real sense, of course, the changes which have occurred within the Republican party are a vivid example of a long-term trend toward intensification of the ideological lines separating the two major parties in the United States...

...There are, however, a number of elected officials who are in the mainstream of the party yet have attempted to maintain good relations with the Gorldwater people, in some cases with the conscious hope of keeping them in the party...

...Goldwaterites such as Buckley and Dean Burch belong more in the tradition of leaders of "third" ideological parties which do not hope to be elected than in the mainstream of leaders of major coalition parties...

...Still, his previous record suggests that he is a good party man who recognizes that ideological conservatism is a minority position...

...The Republican party must understand that internationalism, civil rights, and the welfare state reforms enacted under Roosevelt and Truman are accepted by the large majority of the American people, including most people who normally vote Republican...

...Accompanying the growth in issue differentiation has been a decline of the traditional unideological political machines...

...These are not simply geographical regions, they are also the areas (the Black Belt apart) that have been undergoing the greatest economic growth and social transformation...

...The reaction of the Goldwaterites will depend in large part on the way Goldwater himself behaves, and no one can predict this...

...Holding back monies only makes sense if the group in control of them has long-term organizational and educational objectives, if it is more interested in building an ideological faction than in placing a few more men in office...

...or to nationally insignificant favorite sons...

...In that year...

...If this is true, it would indicate that the polity is in danger, that the United States faces a future in which ideological extremists will be able to set the tone of election battles, and that a major crisis, scandal, or simply the workings of the two-party pendulum might propel the Right into power in the not too distant future...

...This phenomenon has been most marked in California where, for certain historic reasons, party machines have been weaker than in any other major state...

...The situation in the Republican party today is not unlike that which existed in the British Labor party in 1960...

...Many, to be sure, will bitterly reject the role...

...Since the early '30s, the issues dividing the parties nationally have been in large measure liberal-conservative ones: the role of the state in economic planning, the extension or curtailment of welfare policies, the extent to which the government should intervene to guarantee rights to Negroes, and the role of the United States in foreign affairs...

...Johnson won with the highest percentage of the popular vote ever received in American history...

...They see the role of conservatives like Goldwater as resembling that of Norman Thomas...

...To all those who rejected the Goldwater campaign as one which appealed to extremist sentiments regarding race relations, foreign policy, the protection of due process for the accused, and social welfare, such a vote may still seem appalling...

...Switching parties is somewhat like changing church affiliation, in its connotations of a kind of disloyalty to deeply held commitments, and therefore it is not done lightly or often...

...Many with money did not contribute, partly because they felt any Republican would lose in 1964...

...Interestingly, during the campaign itself Goldwater was unable to recruit much support beyond that which he secured at the time of his nomination in July...

...The Gaitskellites were able to reverse the situation by creating a formal organization, the Campaign for Democratic Socialism, which worked actively during the next years to assure that moderates were elected as convention delegates...

...To further place Goldwater's support in perspective, it is crucial to note that all the polls before the convention showed relatively few Goldwaterites among Republicans...

...Dewey and Eisenhower...

...Seemingly...