As He Accepts the 1980 Republican Nomination, Ronald Reagan Quotes the Speech That Made His Career – “A Time For Choosing”

"You & I have a rendezvous with destiny. We can preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we can sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

There are perhaps three speeches in American history that so electrified the public that they propelled their orators to the front rank of presidential politics overnight: Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address of 1860, William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic convention, and Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech delivered for Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Although most Americans were familiar with Reagan from his movies, this was the first many had glimpsed his politics. A Democrat for most of his life, he changed parties in 1962 and became a Republican. In 1964 he accepted co-chairmanship of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign in California, and over the course of the campaign adapted materials from speeches he had previously given for General Electric, and quotations from other notables, to develop a very effective stump speech that he gave at speaking engagements for Goldwater. The Goldwater national campaign was aware of the success of the stump speech, and asked Reagan to deliver a version in a paid spot on national television. Reagan agreed, and the spot was scheduled for the night of October 27, 1964. In terms of text, Reagan adapted the stump speech in a few places to fit the occasion; for example, he ended the TV address with a statement about Barry Goldwater.

For 30 minutes on that night, Reagan, fully aware of Goldwater’s impending loss, sailed directly against the prevailing liberal political winds represented by the Democratic Party in the LBJ era. In “A Time for Choosing” he revealed a coherent political philosophy that differed in ways from the then-current brand of conservatism, blended with great skill and art in his rhetoric. And as he made the case for conservatism, all the while he exuded a forward-looking optimism rooted in the greatness of America. The choice Reagan asked his audience to make was not simply between Goldwater and Johnson – but between two views of America as he saw it. “This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.” “Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government,” he stated, “and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

Reagan delivered an ideological speech, with strong attacks on liberalism and Johnson. “In this vote-harvesting time,” Reagan said early in the speech, “they use terms like the ‘Great Society,’ or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people.” He repudiated that ideology, and promised the Republican Party would lead the nation out of the post-New Deal-era wilderness. At the same time, Reagan made great efforts to transcend partisanship by portraying his views as common sense: “You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well, I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: man’s old, old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” Brilliantly delivered, the speech was electrifying to hear.

In his autobiography, Reagan recalled going to bed that night "hoping I hadn't let Barry down." The speech couldn’t save Goldwater, whose landslide defeat by President Lyndon Johnson was thought at the time to represent a sweeping repudiation of conservatism. Yet “A Time for Choosing” created a groundswell of support for Reagan’s beliefs, and for his own entry into electoral politics two years later. On July 17, 1980, Reagan accepted the nomination of the Republican Party; the rest is history, using many of the same themes as he did years earlier.

Autograph quotation signed, July 20, 1980, just days after becoming the Republican nominee, being the only Reagan signed quotation from either the stump speech or the TV address that we can ever recall seeing. “You & I have a rendezvous with destiny. We can preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we can sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done." Thus, the first portion of this quote is from the TV address, the last portion from the stump speech (that on TV was replaced with the reference to Goldwater).