NARRATION: The race for the Democratic nomination for president is still in flux. And there’s concern that the ideological split in the party will mean a chaotic Democratic convention in July.
That’s a scenario that Republicans faced in 1964 when moderates and conservatives in the GOP fought over their party’s nomination.
RICK PERLSTEIN (AUTHOR, BEFORE THE STORM: BARRY GOLDWATER AND THE UNMAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSENSUS): The drama of the 1964 convention starts with 1952. Dwight Eisenhower becomes president and really establishes the Republican Party as a party of moderation right down the center. Conservatives feel betrayed. They’re convinced that they have to take back the party from what they call the Wall Street Republicans, the New York King Makers. And they back this guy named Barry Goldwater, who is this cowboy Conservative from Arizona over the moderate Nelson Rockefeller.
ARCHIVAL (ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1964):
BARRY GOLDWATER : I’m returning here to San Francisco today to win in the contest for the nomination of my party.
RICK PERLSTEIN: By the time that the convention rolls around, Barry Goldwater really seems to have sewn up the nomination. But the establishment will not let well enough alone. They’re trying even at the last minute at the convention to run one of their own: a blue blood governor of Pennsylvania named William Warren Scranton.
TANYA MELICH (FORMER POLITICAL RESEARCH DIRECTOR, ABC NEWS): A lot of the journalists couldn’t believe that this fellow out of Arizona with these strong opinions was going to get the nomination.
RICK PERLSTEIN: Goldwater is far to the right of the mainstream and the Republican Party. He votes against the Civil Rights Act. He really seems like he’s very reckless when it comes to nuclear war.
ARCHIVAL (LBJ LIBRARY, 1964):
CROWD: We want Barry! We want Barry!
RICK PERLSTEIN: The Goldwater campaign is absolutely convinced that unless they basically run this convention with military discipline, the Eastern establishment will steal the Republican Party from the conservative base.
ARCHIVAL (EFOOTAGE, 1964):
BARRY GOLDWATER: If there is a victory, it’s not a victory for Barry Goldwater, it’s a victory for the mainstream of Republican thinking.
J. WILLIAM MIDDENDORF (FORMER TREASURER, GOLDWATER CAMPAIGN): We were all prepped for weeks in advance of the convention. We had the 36 hotels where delegates were staying. Each one had a radio transmitter right to headquarters. We knew that people would pull the plug on speakers, on microphones – we had backup for all that stuff.
RICK PERLSTEIN: They’re not going to give any quarter when it comes to any platform planks, any procedural rules, they’re just going to vote down the line for Goldwater. Now the liberal side, who are horrified that the public is going to see the Republicans as captive of extremists, decide that they’re going to put forward three platform planks. One promising to uphold the Civil Rights law, another to denounce extremism – whether it comes from the Ku Klux Klan or the Communist Party – and another denouncing racism. They give these very soaring speeches and the Goldwater delegates just consider this an insult.
TANYA MELICH: So when the famous Rockefeller speech occurs, the galleries erupted.