(1909 – 1998) A long-time Republican Party US senator from Arizona (1952–64; 1968–86) and failed presidential candidate, Goldwater is widely considered the founder—and certainly the galvanizer and emblem—of the postwar conservative political movement in the United States.

Although Goldwater had few legislative accomplishments as a senator and suffered a landslide defeat in the 1964 presidential election against Lyndon B. Johnson, his outspoken and unabashed conservative views were a kernel around which the conservative movement was rebuilt, beginning in the 1950s, in the wake of the New Deal and against the current of the postwar liberal consensus. Goldwater gave the conservative movement one of its rallying cries in his speech to the 1964 Republican convention in San Francisco, CA, stating “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” and “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Goldwater’s campaign brought many conservatives into the political arena, including Ronald Reagan. whose victory in 1980 is often considered the flowering of ideological seeds that were planted in the 1964 campaign. Goldwater’s philosophy came down to two core principles: a fundamentally libertarian opposition to the growth of federal programs at home and an adamant and aggressive opposition to Russia abroad. Both principles led his opponents to brand him “extreme,” particularly during the 1964 campaign in which Gold-water suggested making Social Security voluntary and using low-level nuclear blasts to defoliate Vietnam. As a senator, Goldwater voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. These positions led to Goldwater’s 1964 defeat—in which he received less than 40 percent of the popular vote and won only in Arizona and five Southern states—and his acolytes, while sharing his principles, moved away from his specific positions.

At the end of his career, Goldwater’s libertarian attitudes sometimes put him at odds with the conservative movement, as he felt uncomfortable with the religious right and supported homosexual rights.