I am in the middle of reading Teddy White's "Making of the President 1964" and I am somewhat puzzled by the battle between the "primitives" and the "Madison Avenue"/"Wall Street" Republicans. I was wondering if this battle was primarily ideological or if it was for control of the party. And then comes Nelson Rockefeller; he seems like the epitomy of the "establishment": he was wealthy, a New Yorker, he went to the right schools, and he put a "Madison Avenue" kind of thought into his outlook of the world. Why would his kind of people turn against him? It could not have been because Rockefeller was a liberal, since most Northeastern Republicans were liberals, right? Teddy White implied that the "establishment" might have been suspicious of him, possibly out of a jealous grudge against the wealthy, philanthropic, egalitarian Rockefeller clan, but this argument went undeveloped and was not sufficient. And when Goldwater controlled his own destiny to the GOP nomination in 1964 and no viable "establishment" alternative could be found, except maybe Rockefeller, the "establishment" just remained silent and allowed the "primitives" to control the convention, even though Rockefeller was ready to move. Why would the "establishment" allow the "primitives" to take control of the party when they could have maintained control and support the Rockefeller forces? Certainly an envious grudge did not amount to the change in the GOP, or do I just not understand Republican politics well enough?
I myself have been a supporter of Barry Goldwater for many years and was to me what a politician should be, he was straight talking, never pandered to political groups, held firm in his beliefs and most of all didn't take sh!t from no one. The problem with Rockefeller i believe is that he was wealthy liberal and republicans were fed up with these east coast republicans and Barry Goldwater was at the opposite end of that scale. Mind you Barry Goldwater didn't get much support from the republican establishment either
Maybe the establishment was sympathetic to what the primitives were about. And besides, they had already lost with an establishment figure in Nixon. My gut feeling is they knew that sympathy for the administration of the slain president was so overwhelming, that they had no chance to win. Their inclination to let their candidate (Rockefeller) win the nomination was overridden by the fact that the nomination wouldn't have been worth anything anyway. Bro
The "primitive" version of the GOP did not use nuanced arguments and high ideological ideals to expand their base. They, like today's Tea Party, use polarizing views to define their agenda, whether or not they fit the solution. The good side of the Goldwater faction was they were much more transparent and struck a populist chord amongst the WASP middle class (ie. the voters of the time). The Democrats were themselves factionalized at the time over civil rights, and the "Solid South" was permently lost from the Dem after the Civil Rights Act, going instead to an increasingly cynical GOP. Were it not for Nixon's incredibly bad paranoia, the GOP might have put together a dynasty.
