Courtesy of C-SPAN. A 1994 interview about her experience as a "Goldwater Girl"
THE BACKLASH TO BERKELEY
Reagan’s War on Counterculture & the University of California System
THE SAN FRANCISCO REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
“We pledge…to open avenues of peaceful progress in solving racial controversies while discouraging lawlessness and violence.”
Republican National Party Platform of 1964
At the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, Barry Goldwater was nominated, who campaigned on a “law and order” stance towards anti-communism, and framed social unrest as signs of moral decline, constituting political reform.
"There is a price we will not pay. There is a point beyond which they [our enemies] must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's 'peace through strength."
Ronald Reagan, 1964; "A Time for Choosing"
Reagan’s televised rhetoric not only propelled him into the national spotlight, but it also irreversibly reshaped the Republican Party's base, shifting away from the minority-based, "party for all people" to a more white, suburban conservative one like we see today.
Youth and women, many of whom were a part of YAF, were mobilized in this new effort.
Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Pictured Reagan delivering his "A Time for Choosing" Speech.
Goldwater Girls
Hillary Clinton, who was 17 in 1964, was a self-proclaimed “Goldwater Girl”.
Seated in the front corner, the Goldwater Girls—mainly young, suburban white women—sidelined the long-standing minority and Black Republicans, many of whom felt disenfranchised with the new platform. Reagan's reaction built directly on this regional realignment, turning the girls’ grassroots efforts into a conservative voting bloc.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Outside of the RNC, protests and controversy marked the city. The Beatles’ North American Tour kicked off at Cow Palace a month after the convention, turning San Francisco into an ideological revolution on both sides. Reagan, however, frames his persona as taking a "moral high ground" above all of the social unrest, setting himself up for the eventual gubernatorial election of 1966.
Courtesy of the Oakland Tribune Collection
Courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle
Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny."
Ronald Reagan, 1964; "A Time for Choosing"
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