Here’s how Hillary Clinton plans to beat Donald Trump: She will replay the very successful 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater. That is, she will scare the bejeezus out of Americans by describing Trump as a “loose cannon,” someone who cannot be trusted with America’s nuclear arsenal. At the same time, she will convince Republicans, alarmed at the prospect of a Goldwater-scale defeat, that backing her is the sensible choice. Her surrogates in the media are already spreading this narrative, which may prove as empty as Clinton’s record as secretary of state.
Goldwater was the conservative presidential candidate who went down in flames in 1964, winning only six states, because Democrats convinced voters he might drop an atom bomb on China. The clincher for opponent Lyndon Johnson was the "Daisy" television ad, showing a young girl plucking the petals off a daisy as a male voice counts down from 10 to 1. The ad closes with a gigantic nuclear explosion filling the screen. You can easily imagine a similar ad surfacing this year, with a split screen showing Trump bellowing insults or promising to take on China while a nuke demolishes the Forbidden City.
The news media, ever faithful, has picked up the hint. Face the Nation, CNN, MSNBC and others have recently featured segments and op-eds about Goldwater, noting how his candidacy devastated the GOP. They frequently forget to mention that Hillary Clinton — yes, Hillary Clinton — worked for Barry Goldwater’s campaign.
Clinton was a “proud” conservative in her youth , before she became a liberal and then a “pragmatic progressive.” Even as Trump has ranged widely over the political plains, so has Clinton.
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