How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
Because of this administration we are tonight a world divided—we are a Nation becalmed. We have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. We are plodding at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without discourse. (28-30)
Basically, LBJ has turned the entire country into an enormous slow-moving bureaucratic mass that's destroying freedom and individuality. Barry's not gonna take it anymore.
Quote #2
Tonight there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness among our youth, anxiety among our elders and there is a virtual despair among the many who look beyond material success for the inner meaning of their lives. (32)
In other words, when society's going down the tubes and people are generally miserable, who ya gonna call? Goldwater.
Quote #3
Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. (49-50)
Those Democrats, trying to turn America into a land of clones… What are we, the Soviet Union? Are we in Huxley's Brave New World? Rand's Anthem? Goldwater certainly seems to think LBJ and his crew were leading America down that path.
Quote #4
[i]t's been during Democratic years that our strength to deter war has stood still, and even gone into a planned decline. It has been during Democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into conflict, timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation, and tragically, of letting our finest men die on battlefields (unmarked by purpose, unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory). (62-63)
Barry accused Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson of sending American troops into harm's way without a coherent plan, and without being honest with the American people about what was going on. This was one of his favorite topics to vent about, before, during, and after the election.
Quote #5
[i]t has been during Democratic years that a billion persons were cast into Communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed. Today in our beloved country we have an administration which seems eager to deal with communism in every coin known—from gold to wheat, from consulates to confidence, and even human freedom itself. (71-72)
How could we say that we're a free country with free people dedicated to all things freedom, when we're willing to negotiate and trade with communists? And BTW, Shmoop thinks plenty of people fell under communist rule during the Eisenhower era.