Jan. 21, 1964 - Senator Barry Goldwater said today that attempts to stifle conservative dissent had let to “fascism of the left.” The Arizona Republican encountered winds and showers as he flew into New Hampshire to resume his campaign in the state’s Presidential primary election, scheduled for March 10. At a “public coffee” in St. Andrew’s parish house in Hopkinton, Mr. Goldwater told a small audience that “disagreement and dissent are being discouraged in this country.” He said elements of the press and Government wanted to “downgrade a man because he wants to dissent.” “What we have actually today is fascism on the left, if you want to classify it properly,” he said. “Under fascism, you are not allowed to say anything, and under Communism too.”
Mr. Goldwater exercised his role as a conservative dissenter as he covered the snowy countryside. He spoke to town-meeting audiences, argued with a few Democrats, showed annoyance at some Harvard law students who dogged his steps, pinched a baby’s cheek, and bought his first pair of galoshes. Mr. Goldwater scoffed at Governor Rockefeller’s assertions that the Senator was not a good Republican because he had not supported the 1960 Republican platform. He told a meeting at the Goffstown Masonic Hall that the GOP had lost on that platform. It was written in a “smoky room four years ago,” he said, and it “didn’t do us any good.” Governor Rockefeller had a heavy influence in drafting the 1960 platform. In a speech to the Junior Chamber in Manchester, Mr. Goldwater said “I don’t buy” criticism portraying Congress as not passing enough legislation. He said that “quality, not quantity” should be the yardstick for measuring Congress. “It isn’t what we do, but we don’t do” that is most important, he added.
