Barry Goldwater appears in The Bob Zadek Show as a recurring reference point rather than as the subject of a dedicated episode. Across three episodes, speakers invoke him in discussions of presidential impeachment, the Fairness Doctrine, and the meaning of conservatism. The excerpts do not present a sustained treatment of Goldwater’s career, legislation, or political philosophy; they use his name to anchor claims about political pressure, media regulation, and ideological lineage.
Impeachment and the Nixon Delegation
In the January 26, 2020 episode on impeachment, John Rothmann — who states that he worked for Richard Nixon — describes Goldwater’s role in the events leading to Nixon’s resignation. Rothmann says that the Nixon impeachment never took place because Republicans made the decision, and that Goldwater, John Rhodes, and Hugh Scott went to the White House on August 7th, 1974, and essentially told the president he did not have the votes to survive Withholding Judgment on Impeachment with John Rothmann (2020). Rothmann states that the legal issue of whether the president had committed a high crime or misdemeanor was not debated.
Rothmann then recounts a conversation he attributes to Goldwater himself. According to Rothmann, Nixon turned to Goldwater and asked how many votes he had in the Senate. Rothmann says Goldwater told him that he responded to the president, “You have six votes at most, and I am not one of them” Withholding Judgment on Impeachment with John Rothmann (2020). Rothmann uses this account to support his broader argument that impeachment proceedings are political rather than legal. He notes that Nixon resigned because he knew, as Rothmann puts it, that he had impeached himself, and that Nixon could not survive because his political support among Republicans collapsed completely.
Rothmann generalizes from this to the claim that whether the proceeding concerns Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, or Donald Trump, these are political proceedings, and he reminds listeners that no president of the United States facing trial in the United States Senate has been convicted and removed from office Withholding Judgment on Impeachment with John Rothmann (2020). In this episode, Goldwater functions as a witness to the political nature of impeachment — the person who delivered the vote count that ended Nixon’s presidency. The excerpt does not describe Goldwater’s own views on impeachment, his Senate career, or his relationship to Nixon beyond this delegation and conversation.
The Fairness Doctrine and the 1964 Election
In the February 14, 2021 episode on the Fairness Doctrine, Paul Matzko describes the doctrine and its economic effects on radio stations. He explains that the Fairness Doctrine required stations that allowed editorializing to represent both major points of view, and that it hinged on citizen complaints filed with the FCC, which could affect license renewal The Radio Right and The Fairness Doctrine (2021). Matzko describes how the Kennedy administration created a front organization called the Citizens Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban, funded by and created in the Oval Office, to file complaints against radio stations allowing attacks on the treaty.
Matzko then describes the economic effect on small stations. He explains that the FCC passed an additional rule called the Cullman Doctrine, which required stations to air a response for free if someone said their point of view was not represented The Radio Right and The Fairness Doctrine (2021). This meant stations were paid once but had to give away two airtime slots, creating a chilling effect on controversial content. Matzko states that an internal document from a Democratic National Committee-sponsored operative team using the Fairness Doctrine to gin up support for Lyndon Johnson’s campaign and to hurt Barry Goldwater’s campaign reported back after the 1964 election that the effort was valuable not just because it extracted thousands of hours of free pro-Johnson airtime but also because it significantly diminished the ability of right-wing hosts to find stations willing to air them The Radio Right and The Fairness Doctrine (2021). By the end of the decade, Matzko says, right-wing radio was a shell of itself, and all of the major broadcasters had lost a majority of their radio stations willing to air them.
In this episode, Goldwater appears as the beneficiary — or target — of a media regulation strategy. The excerpt does not describe Goldwater’s campaign, his positions, or his response to the Fairness Doctrine. He is named as the candidate whose campaign the DNC operative team sought to hurt, and the episode uses that fact to illustrate the doctrine’s political use.
Conservatism and Character
In the August 30, 2022 episode on the 2022 and 2024 elections, Bob Zadek raises the question of character in politics, asking whether it is better to have a candidate with questionable character who is faithful to one’s values or one with exemplary character who is less faithful. John Giadjopoulos responds that he would tolerate someone unpleasant if they align with his principles, and then turns to Donald Trump. Giadjopoulos says that if people think Trump is a Reagan conservative, he is not; if they think Trump is a Goldwater conservative or a William Buckley conservative, or even to some extent a Milton Friedman type of conservative, he is not Dick Morris on the 2022 and 2024 Elections (2022). He notes that Trump was a Democrat until it was unpopular for him to be so, and that he does not know anything in Trump’s core beliefs that changed to justify the switch, unlike Ronald Reagan, who laid out philosophical ideals explaining his conversion from left to right.
Giadjopoulos then discusses the Libertarian Party and the Mises Caucus, describing aggressive imagery tweeted by the New Hampshire Libertarian Party to denigrate John McCain. He says the Mises Caucus probably aligns with him and Zadek more than any other political faction on core beliefs — free markets, maximum individual liberty, non-interventionist wars — but that he and Zadek would likely find the tweet horribly offensive. He concludes that each person has their own line as to when character becomes an issue regardless of alignment with ideals.
In this episode, “Goldwater conservative” functions as a label for a particular strand of conservatism, invoked alongside Reagan, Buckley, and Friedman as a benchmark against which Trump’s ideological credentials are measured. The excerpt does not define what a Goldwater conservative believes, nor does it describe Goldwater’s own political career or positions. The name serves as a shorthand for a tradition, and the episode uses it to argue that Trump does not fit within that tradition.
Across episodes
The three episodes do not develop a single argument about Goldwater; they invoke him in separate contexts. In the 2020 impeachment episode, Rothmann uses Goldwater’s 1974 conversation with Nixon to illustrate the political nature of impeachment. In the 2021 Fairness Doctrine episode, Matzko names Goldwater’s 1964 campaign as a target of Fairness Doctrine complaints. In the 2022 elections episode, Giadjopoulos uses “Goldwater conservative” as a label for a tradition Trump does not represent. The excerpts show no development in how Goldwater is treated across these episodes; each uses his name for a different purpose, and none builds on the others.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe Goldwater’s Senate career, his 1964 presidential campaign beyond its mention as a target of Fairness Doctrine complaints, his legislative record, or his political philosophy. They do not state his state of origin, his dates of service, or the titles he held. The excerpts also do not include Goldwater’s own views on impeachment, the Fairness Doctrine, or conservatism beyond the single quoted line Rothmann attributes to him. Any treatment of Goldwater as a subject in his own right would require sources beyond these excerpts.