Did Goldwater's views on Medicare and Social Security cost him Florida?

[RINO Tom]

People seem to want to pinpoint Goldwater losses in a lot of states to specific reasons.  Northern voters were just repulsed that he opposed civil rights.  Dovish voters in the Midwest hated his war rhetoric.  Seniors were scared off by his cuts.  From what I have read, most of Johnson's large victory was driven more by "intangible" things; Goldwater was simply viewed as kind of a fired up extreme change at a time when Johnson was pretty popular.  His positions were out of the mainstream on a lot of stuff, and his personality probably made it worse.  If he hadn't have voted against the CRA (which given his past history was far from a sure thing), he would have lost even more badly, as he wouldn't have even served as a convenient protest vote for the Deep South.

[RINO Tom]

There were a lot of racist people who voted for Johnson in spite of their racism because they found Goldwaters views on Medicare and Social Security even more dangerous than Johnsons views on Civil Rights.

What a shocker!