In an era in which a national consensus seemed to have coalesced around advancing civil rights, containing Communism and expanding government, the moderates believed they had to win to preserve the Republican Party.
Goldwater's tone reflected the tenor of this ugliest of Republican conventions since 1912, as entrenched moderates faced off against conservative insurgents. "He's the phoniest individual who ever came around." Let them make an issue of it," Goldwater snapped back. "After Lyndon Johnson-the biggest faker in the United States? He opposed civil rights until this year. That was where a reporter cornered the Arizona senator and asked him whether the Democrats would campaign on the fact that nearly 70 percent of the convention delegates, acting on his campaign's instructions, had voted down a platform plank affirming the constitutionality of the recently passed Civil Rights Act. The day Goldwater was to accept the nomination at the Cow Palace in nearby Daly City, he caught a service elevator in the hotel kitchen.
The wait that hot July week could stretch to 45 minutes. There were only three small elevators at the Mark Hopkins, the splendid old San Francisco hotel that served as headquarters for contenders Barry Goldwater and William Scranton during the 1964 Republican National Convention.
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