The Underdog Underdog

"I'm the most underdog underdog there is," said Barry Goldwater to a Las Vegas airport audience. Yet as far as audience reaction was concerned, Barry had perhaps the most momentous moments of his whole campaign.

In New York City's Madison Square Garden, 18,000 clamorous fans gave him a roaring ovation for 28 minutes, interrupted his 35-minute speech more than 100 times with applause. In Cleveland's Public Hall, a near-capacity crowd of 15,000 yelled, screamed, honked horns and rang bells for eleven minutes before Barry finally got them quiet by holding up a silver pocket watch. In Pittsburgh, 15,000 jammed the Civic Arena, raised the roof for 19 minutes before letting the candidate open his mouth.

On the Offensive. Still, even among the ovations, there were reminders that all is not well between Barry and a lot of leading Republicans. In New York, neither Governor Nelson Rockefeller nor Senator Kenneth Keating showed up to share the platform. In Cleveland, Ohio's Republican Governor James Rhodes and Senate Candidate Bob Taft were both absent. During a day-long tour of western Pennsylvania, Republican Senator Hugh Scott was nowhere in sight. In Illinois, Gubernatorial Candidate Chuck Percy thought it best to ignore Barry's visit to Belleville.

Reporters accompanying Barry said that a defeatist attitude pervaded the whole Goldwater entourage. But Barry certainly did not sound defeatist in his public utterances. If nothing else, he was on the offensive. Said he to the Madison Square Garden throng: "It is a fact that Lyndon Johnson and his curious crew seem to believe that progress in this country is best served simply and directly through the ever-expanding gift power of the everlastingly growing Federal Government. One thing we all know, and I assure you I do: that's a much easier way to get votes than my way. It always has been. It's political Daddyism, and it's as old as demagogues and despotism."

Democrats, Barry charged, "are driving and confusing you with the basic dishonesty that permeates so much political campaigning. I speak of peace. Your interim President tells you I want to start a war, which is ridiculous, and you know it, and he knows it. I speak of strengthening the social security system, and your interim President tells you I want to destroy it, which is ridiculous, and he knows it, and you know it." A Fourth World War? In Tennessee, Goldwater cried: "During the past few days, Lyndon Johnson frankly has told the American people that he won't be satisfied with just an election--he wants to be crowned. He has asked for a mandate. He wants total trust, total love, total power over your total lives. Somebody, and it's got to be you, should remind Lyndon Johnson just where he lives. This is America. This is not some mythical kingdom conjured up for him to play with." In Cleveland, Goldwater reiterated his position against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "No person," he said, "whether government official or private citizen, should violate the rights of some in order to further the rights of others. We are being asked to destroy the rights of some under the false banner of promoting the 'civil rights' of others." At week's end Goldwater wended his way West, turned his guns on the Johnson Administration's handling of foreign policy, which, he said, has left "our great alliances in shambles" while "American prestige has been sinking slowly out of sight." Johnson, he charged, "worries more about the votes he's going to get than the boys we lose in Viet Nam." To a Cheyenne, Wyo., crowd Goldwater declared: "I believe that unless we keep our military strength high we are doomed for a third world war--for a fourth one--because we may be in the beginning of the third one now in South Viet Nam."

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