I imagine Barry Goldwater might be rolling over in his grave, to know that Donald Trump will be in the house. Specifically, in his house.
On Saturday, Donald Trump will stand on the patio from which Goldwater launched his 1964 presidential bid.
His visit to Goldwater's Paradise Valley home will no doubt invite comparisons between Trump and the Arizona icon who spent his life serving his city, his state and his nation. It is, after all, all the rage these days to compare Goldwater circa '64 with Trump circa '16.
But come on... Donald Trump? He’s no Barry Goldwater.
Oh, there are similarities.
When Goldwater announced he was running for president, nobody actually thought he could win the Republican nomination. He was a blunt talking outlier in party circles, a staunch conservative who spoke his mind and snatched the prize right out from the under the nose of the establishment’s choice: Nelson Rockefeller.
Who would have thought, at this time last year, that Trump would be the presumptive nominee?
Goldwater believed that the country was headed in the wrong direction and promised to restore it to its former glory, based upon a guiding set of deeply-held principles.
Trump wants to make America great again. He’s even got a hat that says so.
Black voters were forever lost to the Republican Party in 1964, when Goldwater -- who voted against the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 based on constitutional concerns -- was the party’s standard bearer.
Does anybody think the Latinos will be embracing a party led by Trump?
But there also are some fundamental differences between Barry Goldwater and Donald Trump.
For one thing, Goldwater had a wide streak of humility.
“My fellow Republicans, our cause is too great for any man to feel worthy of it,” he said, in accepting the Republican nomination for president.
Here’s Trump this week: "We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself. I'll do very well. I'm going to do very well. OK? I'm going to do very well. A lot of people thought I should do that anyway, but I'll just do it very nicely by myself.”
Goldwater had a bedrock ideology that guided his plan for America. He believed in small government, states’ rights, personal responsibility and economic liberty.
Trump is a former Democrat who shoots from the hip – or, in his case, the lip. His campaign is based upon tough talk about Mexicans and Muslims rather than any real thought-out set of beliefs. Other than the belief that most politicians are blithering idiots, that is.
You get the feeling that mostly, Trump believes in … Trump.
His supporters love, or at least overlook, every appalling thing that comes out of his mouth. But while the John Birchers knew what they were getting in Goldwater, tea partiers, I suspect, are in for a surprise.
Say what you will about Goldwater, but he stood for something. He was a genuinely decent man, a public servant who had a view for where he wanted to take this country and a plan for how to get there.
Trump, meanwhile, seems to have no plan other than to Make America Great Again and that, it seems, is good enough for his supporters who will cram into Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum on a blistering hot Saturday afternoon to cheer him on.
As for the party’s leadership? I imagine most of them will be popping Prozac. They know that Donald Trump's no Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater, though he lost in a landslide, sparked a movement that would reshape the Republican Party for decades to come.
Trump is sparking a movement that could doom it.
Laurie Roberts is a columnist for The Arizona Republic, where this piece first appeared.
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