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Recent Editorials |
Mitt Romney vs. Barry Goldwaterby Ryan Sager
When the Larry Craig scandal broke, Mitt Romney quickly threw the senator — previously the head of his senate outreach effort — under the bus. He not only let Mr. Craig resign from the campaign (which is more than understandable), but he also took to the airwaves to blast Mr. Craig as "disgusting." Slate's John Dickerson compares Mr. Romney's response to Barry Goldwater's in a somewhat similar situation: We don't have to guess about what Goldwater would do. During the 1964 presidential campaign, he faced almost precisely the same issue. In October, the Goldwater campaign learned that Walter Jenkins, LBJ's closest aide, had been arrested on a "morals charge" in the YMCA bathroom. According to J. William Middendorf's account of that campaign, A Glorious Disaster, Goldwater's aides wanted to use the scandal against Johnson, who was well ahead in the polls. Jenkins was not only a security risk—open to blackmail— but long before he was arrested, there were allegations he'd used his influence with then-Vice President Johnson to get an Air Force general who had been busted on a morals charge reinstated. The Goldwater aides even tried out slogans: "Either way with LBJ." Goldwater insisted that they make no use of it. The story never came up during the campaign.The situation isn't perfectly analogous, of course. But where it differs, it makes Goldwater look even better by comparison. Goldwater wouldn't go after his opponent's associate as harshly as Mr. Romney went after his own ally. Related Topics: GOP Primary |
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