suggested by speechwriter Harry Jaffa): "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." For many GOP moderates, Goldwater's speech was seen as a deliberate insult, and many of these moderates would defect to the Democrats in the fall election. General election Campaign Although Goldwater had been successful in rallying conservatives, he was unable to broaden his base of support for the general election. Shortly before the Republican Convention, he had alienated moderate and liberal Republicans by his vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which Johnson supported following Kennedy's death and signed into law. While a staunch supporter of racial equality, having voted in favor of the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights acts bills and the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, Goldwater felt that desegregation was primarily a states' rights issue, rather than a national policy, and believed the 1964 act to be unconstitutional. Goldwater's vote against the legislation helped cause African-Americans to overwhelmingly support Johnson. Goldwater had previously voted in favor of the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights acts, but only after proposing "restrictive amendments" to them. Goldwater was famous for speaking "off-the-cuff" at times, and many of his former statements were given wide publicity by the Democrats. In the early 1960s, Goldwater had called the Eisenhower administration "a dime store New Deal", and the former president never fully forgave him or offered him his full support in the election. In December 1961, he told a news conference that "sometimes, I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea", a remark which indicated his dislike of the liberal economic and social policies that were often associated with that part of the nation. That comment came back to hurt him, in the form of a Johnson television commercial, as did remarks about making Social Security voluntary (something that even his running mate Miller felt would lead to the destruction of the system) and selling the Tennessee Valley Authority. In his most famous verbal gaffe, Goldwater once joked that the U.S. military should "lob one [a nuclear bomb] into the men's room of the Kremlin" in the Soviet Union. Goldwater was also hurt by the reluctance of many prominent moderate Republicans to support