Obama, Ron Paul, Barry Goldwater, & 1964's Influence On 2008

One theme I'm noticing in the coverage of the 2008 election is that writers are finding a lot of parallels to 1964.

-First, it's pretty popular to analogize Republican candidate Ron Paul with Barry Goldwater. The feeling among some is that the Republicans don't have a great shot at the White House in '08, so they might as well nominate Paul as a nouveau Goldwater. The strategy behind this appears to be that a Ron Paul nomination might pave the way for the next Ronald Reagan in much the same way as Barry Goldwater's 1964 nomination paved the way for Reagan's election win in 1980.

-Secondly, some have drawn parallels between Barack Obama's controversial comments on operations in Pakistan and Barry Goldwater's poorly received comments about nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union back in the 1964 campaign. While I can't say I totally agree with the totality of the article I liked to on this, we probably haven't seen a candidate have to do this much damage control on foreign policy since Goldwater.

In addition to all this 1964's candidates had some of my favorite t-shirt designs. Check out the "In Your Heart You Know He's Right" Goldwater shirt, the "Elect Goldwater President" shirt, or even the "LBJ For The USA" Lyndon Johnson shirt.