Donald Trump will soon participate in a fundraiser at the former home of 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, and the conservative icon’s widow isn’t happy about it.
“I think Barry would be appalled that his home was being used for that purpose,” Susan Goldwater Levine told the Washington Post.
“Barry would be appalled by Mr. Trump’s behavior,” Levine added, describing Trump as “unintelligent and unfiltered” with a “crude communications style.”
“And he’s shallow — so, so shallow,” she said.
Trump reportedly asked the owners of the home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., if they would be willing to host himself and several top GOP donors over the weekend as he seeks to raise money for his general election campaign and the Republican National Committee.
“Barry was a good, solid Republican and was conservative,” Robert Hobbs, who purchased the home in 2000 and agreed to Trump’s request, told the Post. “I’m not sure that Donald Trump is conservative, but he’s who our nominee is.”
Hobbs said Levine was “entitled to her opinion” but that her late husband “was a Republican and Donald Trump’s a Republican, and we’re going to support whoever the Republican nominee is.”
Trump has often been likened to Goldwater, whose insurgent presidential campaign disturbed many Republican leaders and led to an attempt to block his nomination at the 1964 convention. Others claim Goldwater’s deeply held conservative beliefs set him squarely apart from Trump – a candidate who, less than two decades ago, described himself “more as a Democrat.”
Levine called such comparisons “crazy and inappropriate.”
“Barry was so true to his convictions and would never be issuing these shallow, crude, accusatory criticisms of the other party or the other person,” she said. “No matter how he was feeling, he would conduct himself with dignity and pride — because as the candidate or as the president, it’s required.”
The latest fundraiser organized by Trump and the RNC is expected to attract steadfast Trump supporters like former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and State Treasurer Jeff DeWit, who chairs the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign in the Grand Canyon State. Tickets to the event reportedly range from $2,700 to $25,000.
Trump is slated to hold a campaign rally in Arizona on Saturday shortly before he attends the private fundraiser at Goldwater’s former estate.
