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WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968
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the political realities unfolding on the ground. The violence and unrest
of 1964, including the Watts riot, stoked racial anxieties. Goldwater had
staked out his territory as an opponent of the Democratic approach to
civil rights; whether he liked it or not, he was becoming a central fi gure
in the political clash over integration and desegregation, and these
issues, far more than capitalism, underlay his political fortunes.
An eager booster of Goldwater up to his triumphant nomination at
San Francisco’s Cow Palace, Rand became disillusioned as he moved
into the general election. It was the same mistake Willkie had made.
Goldwater began to retreat from his pro-capitalist stance, repackaging
himself as a moderate who could appeal to a broad swath of voters.
Afterward Rand dissected his campaign angrily: “There was no discussion
of capitalism. There was no discussion of statism. There was no discussion
of the blatantly vulnerable record of the government’s policies
in the last thirty years. There was no discussion. There were no issues.”
A month before the election Rand warned her readers that Goldwater
was moving toward defeat, and she urged them to prepare for the “bitter
disappointment.” Perhaps hoping to reverse the tide, as the campaign
drew to a close Rand sent him a speech to be used without attribution. 46
Her speech, like her letter to Goldwater, recast conservatism along purely
economic lines, celebrating the power of the free market. The campaign,
by now past the point of rescue, ignored her contribution.
In truth Goldwater faced a nearly impossible task. He was running
against the master politician Lyndon Baines Johnson, who pulled the
mantle of the deceased John F. Kennedy close around his shoulders. And
Goldwater’s irreverent, shoot-from-the hip, folksy style, so attractive to
straight-talking libertarians, was a huge liability. Caricatured as a racist
fanatic who would drag the United States into nuclear war, Goldwater
lost by a landslide in the general election. Besides Arizona the only states
he won were in the Deep South, fi lled with the very southern Democrats
Rand cited to disprove his racism. Yet Goldwater’s decisive defeat held
within it the seeds of political transformation, for his positions had
made the Republican Party nationally competitive in the South for the
fi rst time since the Civil War. It was an augury of the fi rst national political
realignment since FDR’s New Deal. 47
“It’s earlier than we think,” Rand told the New York Times the day
after Goldwater’s loss. Advocates of capitalism had to “start from
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