Then-Michigan Gov. George Romney (father of now-presidential candidate Mitt Romney), seated in 1964 with then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, whom Romney refused to enforse and called an “extremist.”  At the podium is future president Gerald Ford, then still  a Congressman from Michigan.

Mitt’s father also played a key role in the bitter 1964 Republican split over its nomination that year of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the arch-conservative who lost in a landslide to Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson while inspiring future conservative leaders like Ronald Reagan.  This is where we’ll start right now.

Nelson and Happy Rockefeller on their 1963 honeymoon.

 Nelson Rockefeller, by contrast, oozed with eastern elitism.  The wealthy grandson of Standard Oil titan John D. Rockefeller, the New York governor not only practiced liberal big-city politics but also crossed a cultural taboo in 1963 by divorcing his wife and immediately marrying a women fifteen years younger named Happy who also had recently divorced her own husband and ceded him custody of their four children.  Few doubted that the two had carried on a secret affair for years.  In 1964, adultury still mattered.

George Romney had been elected Michigan governor in 1962.  A former auto executive, he had created a state income tax and, like Rockefeller, was a strong civil rights backer.  In June 1964, watching the growing split in his Party, Romney had no trouble picking sides.  He joined 12 other Republican governors that month in blasting Goldwater, declaring “I will do everything within my power to keep him from becoming the party’s presidential nominee.”  Reaching the convention in San Francisco, he told the platform committee to “unequivocally reject extremism of the right and the left” — a clear slap at Goldwater and his followers.

Charges of “extremism” against Goldwater crescendoed over the next few days, culminating in an ugly scene as Nelson Rockefeller himself was loudly booed when he addressed the convention(see clip above).  Eight different candidates received first ballot votes (including 41 for Romney), but this was not enough to stop the inevitable.  In accepting the nomination, Goldwater shot back at his critics: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”  

After San Francisco, Republican moderates abandoned the party in droves.  Still, Barry Goldwater hoped he might be able to win over George Romney.  He reached out, and Romney apparently was willing to try to bridge the gap.  That August, just prior to a meeting in Pennsylvania, Romney sent Goldwater (via his vice presidential running mate Congressman William Miller (R-NY)) a brief statement on civil rights and asked Goldwater to endorse it as a way to de-fuse the issue.  According to journalists Roland Evans and Robert Novak, the statement read in part as follows: “The rights of some must not be enjoyed by denying the rights of others.  Neither can we  permit states rights at the expense of human rights.”

Goldwater refused, and after that George Romney drew the line.  He refused to endorse Goldwater or to appear with him publicly.  Later, he wrote Goldwater a twelve page private letter explaining his reasons, focusing on civil rights  In the end, Romney won re-election that year as Michigan governor by 380,000 votes as Goldwater was losing the state by over a million.