[catpuppy]

He was a boring speaker who numbed even audiences of the faithful.

Not really. When you left a Goldwater rally you left knowing that you had just heard an honest man who had told you what you needed to hear, not necessarily what you wanted to hear. He was not a Reagan or a Kennedy but he was a far better speaker than Nixon, Ford, Carter or George H. W. Bush. And compared with Johnson, Goldwater was pure eloquence.

The campaign was "poor" in the sense that Goldwater pandered to no one. But that was not what doomed his campaign. As was observed at the time, the bullet that killed Kennedy killed any chance that Goldwater had to become president. Had Kennedy not been shot, the 1964 election definitely would have been closer and may have resulted in a Goldwater victory.

[Publius]

Back in the Twenties, Goldwater's Uncle Moe ran for mayor of Phoenix. He and his opponent -- good friends all -- ran an interesting campaign. First, Moe and his opponent would go to a rally in Moe's car, imbibing along the way (it was during Prohibition). At the rally Moe would speak first, calling his opponent a sonofabitch, and then his opponent would speak, calling Moe a sonofabitch. Then they'd hop into Moe's car, drink some more, go to the next rally, but this time Moe's opponent would speak first, and the order would be reversed.

In 1963, Goldwater suggested to Kennedy that the 1964 campaign be conducted under the same rules. The two would campaign from city to city in Air Force I, sipping bourbon and honing their arguments against each other along the way. Kennedy and Goldwater were very close friends, and Goldwater saw this as a chance to have a great debate on the issues. If he was going to go down in flames to his friend Kennedy, it would be on the issues in one of the country's greatest campaigns. (According to Kenny O'Donnell, Kennedy's press secretary after Pierre Salinger, Kennedy agreed to the arrangement because he felt Goldwater would be easy to beat.)

It would have been a magnificent campaign had Kennedy been permitted to let it happen that way. And Goldwater might have pulled it off.