Did you know “Mitt” is comparing himself to Reagan? However, George W. Romney, who was elected to a third two-year term in MI on the same day that Reagan was first elected governor in CA, said only that he “accepted, but did not endorse” the Goldwater candidacy. The Romneys are as much RINO as the Bushes, and the Bushes seem to favor Romney though they are reconciled to HRC.
Fox News:
Romney ran as a moderate [hah] in his failed 1994 bid to unseat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and in his winning gubernatorial campaign eight years later. In a 1994 debate with Kennedy, Romney defended a woman's right to abortion and sought to distance himself from Reagan.
"I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush; I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush. My positions don't talk about the things you suggest they talk about; this isn't a political issue," Romney said at the debate.
George Romney favored federal civil rights legislation. Barry Goldwater didn't. That's why Romney withheld his endorsement of Goldwater's candidacy.
George Romney certainly should have supported the party's nominee, but I wouldn't hold his committment to civil rights against him.
Mitt's father was a moderate Republican, with a liberal side and a conservative side. He'd have been the first to admit that, if he didn't hate labels so much:
"I have undertaken to avoid labels ... I would like to have people judge me by what I stand for on specific issues. I would like to be as conservative as the Constitution of the United States, as progressive as Theodore Roosevelt, and as liberal as Abraham Lincoln." -- George Romney, 1964
But it was another era. Things we take for granted today, like no discrimination in public facilities were very much a matter of debate then.
The majority has come around to respecting Barry Goldwater, and I'd like to think that Goldwaterites can show some of the same generosity of spirit to past opponents.