1964 Johnson VS. Goldwater

"Boy on Bicycle"

Transcript

Museum of the Moving Image
The Living Room Candidate - Transcript
"Boy on Bicycle," Goldwater, 1964

MALE NARRATOR: Don't look now young man, but somebody has his hand in your pocket. It's the hand of big government. It's taking away about four months pay from what your daddy earns evey year — one dollar out of every three in his paycheck. And its taking the security out of your grandmother's Social Security.

GOLDWATER: You know, that's the great trouble with big, inflationary government. It takes more and more of your earnings. It slowly but surely destroys individual initiative and responsibility. The government must draw its strength from the people, and as it drains away this strength, it must inevitably undermine the foundations of self-government. I ask you to join me in helping restore the individual freedoms and initiatives this nation once knew, to make government more the servant and not the master of us all. In this free nation we do not choose to be ruled, we elect to be governed.

MALE NARRATOR: In your heart, you know he's right. Vote for Barry Goldwater.

Credits

"Boy on Bicycle," Republican National Committee, 1964

Maker: Interpublic: Erwin Wasey, Ruthrauff and Ryan, Inc.

Video courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

From Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2012.
www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/boy-on-bicycle (accessed July 24, 2025).

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1964 Johnson Goldwater Results

President Lyndon B. Johnson, who took office following John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, enhanced his image as a tough legislator by winning a hard-fought battle to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which guaranteed African-Americans access to all public facilities, and banned discrimination by race, religion, or sex. The Vietnam War was escalating, but had yet to become a real liability for Johnson.

The margin of Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964 was partly a repudiation of Barry Goldwater’s extreme right-wing views. Goldwater, an Arizona senator and author of the best-selling book The Conscience of a Conservative, won the Republican nomination after a bitter primary campaign against moderate New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. In his acceptance speech, Goldwater made the infamous statement, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." The assertion, meant as a defense of conservatism, merged in the public consciousness with statements in which Goldwater advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam and argued that Social Security be made voluntary.

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