Republic of Fundraising Letters: Direct Mail of the 1964 Barry Goldwater Campaign

<p>This study examines the impacts of political direct mail on grassroots activism by investigating the fundraising drives of the Barry Goldwater campaign in the 1964 presidential election. Goldwater was the first conservative politician nominated by the Republican Party. With enthusiastic support from the right wing, especially anticommunist organizations such as the John Birch Society (JBS), the Goldwater campaign indicated that anti-liberalism could be a national political force in the United States. Throughout the 1964 election, Goldwaterites contacted millions of voters, built up the collective identity of conservatives, and suggested the GOP would be able to make gains in the West and the South. Despite the resounding defeat on Election Day, the Goldwater movement set down the groundwork for the rise of conservatism in the following decades.</p><p>Goldwater’s fundraising campaign also transformed a long-term pattern in political contribution. Direct mail was a new marketing technique of the advertising industry in the postwar era. Unlike mass media including newspaper, radio, and television, direct mail functioned as a personalized medium which distributed different message to individuals, instead of standardized information to the masses. By sending out millions of fundraising letters, Goldwater carved out political niches and constructed a huge database of conservative Americans during the election. Simultaneously, direct mail solicitation changed the amount of each contribution. Prior to the 1960s, both major parties had depended largely on big contributions by business interests and philanthropists. Yet direct mail made it possible to tap small funds such as one or five dollars, opening the door for small money politics. After the Goldwater campaign successfully received the mass of small contributions, Democrats and Republicans began to raise funds from ordinary voters.</p><p>This article explores the 1964 Goldwater movement, focusing on two right-wing groups. The JBS mobilized many middle-class Americans in suburban areas throughout the Sunbelt, and a cadre of New York conservatives, including conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr., National Review publisher William A. Rusher, and political consultant Marvin Liebman, carried out advertising campaigns on Goldwater’s behalf. Whereas the JBS encouraged the grassroots to join the movement through local chapters across the nation, the New York conservatives reached out to individuals with direct mailings. Contrasting the two types of activism, this study analyzes the interactions between the leadership and the grassroots, as well as controversies within the conservative movement in 1964.</p><p>The 1964 presidential election demonstrates that Goldwater’s direct mail added a new definition of grassroots activism in political campaigns. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830s, associations and communities characterized American democracy. However, direct mail as the personalized medium directly connected the leadership to the grassroots without any censorship and regulation, and the information technology recast the grassroots from “activism based on face-to-face relationship” toward “accumulation of small involvements.” Thus, the Goldwater campaign not only galvanized the conservative movement but also influenced political participation in 1960s America.</p>