Barry Goldwater vs. Bob Dole

[Schiff for Senate]

If they ran today, I may lean toward Dole, but there's a good case for Goldwater - he has a libertarian streak and in all honesty (I know I may sound like a racist, but here me out), he had a point about the Civil Rights Act. It was well-intentioned and had positive results, of course, but his point  was that forcing white southerners who were racist to allow African-Americans to work for them or come to their stores wouldn't fix or end the problem of racism, but it would honestly just create more racial resentment. If southern whites were anti-African-American before they had to 'accomodate' African-Americans, I don't think their racism would be alleviated by any means if they were forced to do so. For instance, if a white racist who has previously denied jobs to African-Americans is forced to do, he will either find some loophole to not do it or he will treat the African-American unfairly. On the other hand, in the long run, racists who own businesses will realize themselves that they are losing out on getting more customers and will have to then stop denying African-Americans anyway. I mean, of course they'd be wrong, but if someone thinks that African-Americans are lazier than white people (they aren't, but let's say someone though this), and therefore only hires white people, they will certainly not react well if they are forced to hire African-Americans, and will treat them very unfairly and only get more racist. Goldwater was basically saying that the Civil Rights Act was 1.) unenforcable on a large scale, 2.) could backfire and fuel racial resentment and 3.) would not help fix the problem of racism. Goldwater himself wasn't a racist and did not discriminate against African-Americans.