Obama: Voters Face Starkest Contrast Since Johnson-Goldwater
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BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images(PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.) — President Obama on Tuesday said that the choices facing voters in this election will be the biggest contrast the country has seen since the 1964 election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater, which Johnson won by a margin not since surpassed.
“This election will probably have the biggest contrast that we’ve seen maybe since the Johnson-Goldwater election — maybe before that,” the president said at a fundraiser, just before Rick Santorum announced he was suspending his campaign.
Johnson won the 1964 race by 61 percent of the popular vote, making it the largest Democratic landslide since 1820.
The president’s remarks came at the first of three fundraisers in the swing state Tuesday. Speaking at a luncheon at the home of Hansel Tookes, former president of Raytheon International, Obama pitched his vision for an America where everyone pays their “fair share.”
“My vision…the Democratic vision is one that says that free market is the key to economic growth; that we don’t need to build government just for the sake of expanding its reach; but there are certain things we have to do — whether it’s investments in education, or basic science and research, or caring for the most vulnerable among us and creating an effective safety net — that we have to do, because we can’t do it on our own,” he said.
While Obama did not call out GOP front-runner Mitt Romney by name, he argued that Republicans would gut social programs while offering tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
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