Oct. 31, 1964 - The difference in mood between the Republican and Democratic national headquarters in the closing days of the Presidential campaign is reflected in the spread between the popularity poll ratings for the two candidates — President Johnson 60%, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona 40%.
The Republican National Chairman, Dean Burch, continues to issue optimistic reports about the depth of popular support for the Goldwater-Miller ticket.
“Like Harry Truman in 1948,” he said the other day, “Barry Goldwater has nobody for him except the people. [He] will confound the experts and the pollsters on Tuesday by being elected the 37th President of the United States.”
But behind the brave words and the resolute looks at the Republican headquarters, there is a palpable air of dejection.
One senses in talks with top staff people, the secretaries and even the brightly smiling receptionists, that there is an awareness that their side is losing; that their main concern now is not “whether.” but “how much.”
“I've stopped trying to kid myself,” one lower‐echelon official said the other day.
“Up until about the first of October, I kept on feeling that the campaign would really get off the ground and start moving. We seemed to have a lot going for us, particularly at the grassroots.
“But it hasn't happened. Unless there is the biggest silent vote out there known to man, Barry is almost certain to be clobbered, and the big question now is how badly our local candidates — the fellows running for Congress and Governor and so on — will be hurt.”
The contrast in mood at Democratic headquarters, three blocks away, is striking. Most party officials have cast off the cautionary restraint they had imposed on themselves some weeks ago to avoid being trapped by overconfidence. Today, they question only the size of the landslide by which President Johnson will win.
Both sides are pressing ahead with plans for election‐night “victory celebrations,” the Republicans at a party suite in the Sheraton Park Hotel, the Democrats in a ballroom at the Mayflower.
But there is less heart in all this hubbub among the Republican troops than there is among the Democrats. Even the most incorrigible Goldwater fans among them seem to have had their spirits sapped by the undeviating testimony of the polls and the almost uniformly discouraging reports of the experts.
Another factor dragging at the morale around Republican headquarters is the poorly concealed resentment that smoldered between the “old crowd” and the “new crowd.” The Goldwater forces have purged not only the national committee staff but also a great many state Republican organizations around the country of most of the moderate and Eisenhower-oriented people who were in command before the San Francisco convention.
Now that their zealously launched crusade is faltering, the Goldwaterites are not only frustrated but also angered by the attitude of, “I told you so,” they encountered from the former colleagues they have dispossessed.
“A hell of a feud is building up over who ‘lost’ the election,” an influential Republican said the other day. ‘’It will make the flap between the Dewey and the Taft people after the 1948 defeat, and over the Nixon‐Lodge performance in 1960, seem like a high‐school debate by comparison.”
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