"But after his colossal defeat in '64, he didn't run third party, stay at home, or turn into a bitter old anti-GOP poster on FreeRepublic."
No, man. He stood and fought--and often won.
Your answer gave me a great boost for today.
"The reason I attracted only 39% of the people who voted is because it wasn't Barry Goldwater who was running, it was a caricature of him, built by Governor Scranton and Governor Rockefeller, in the primaries, and then aided and abetted by Romney, Keating, Javits etc, in the general. I was defeated, frankly, before I was nominated. To tell you the truth, we knew this from the polls, in fact, the day of the nomination, only 20% of the people were for me and 80% were for Johnson, and the fact that I almost doubled my appeal and cut his down by the same number is the source of some meager satisfaction. But I hope that the Republican Party never again so destroys its candidate that the candidate has no chance [hello Pat Buchanan 1992!]. I don't believe I could have won the election but I think it would have been something like 55%-45% had about 6-8 million Republicans voted for me, who either didn't vote or voted for Johnson, only because of the distorted image of me painted by disgruntled, unhappy, unfaithful, so-called Republicans, like the Governors and senators etc. I've mentioned."
That's the spirit.
The difference is that today's GOP has totally abandoned Goldwater's principles.