Frederick Clifton (Clif) White (1918–93) was a U.S. political consultant and campaign manager for candidates of the Republican Party and the New York Conservative Party, as well as foreign clients. He is best remembered as the moving force behind the Draft Goldwater Committee in 1961-64, which secured a majority of delegates to nominate the first modern conservative presidential candidate of the Republican Party, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.
White was born and raised in upstate New York, graduating in 1940 from Colgate University. He flew as a navigator on dozens of missions for the Army Air Corps during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, and after the war taught political science at Ithaca College and Cornell University.[1]
In his only candidacy, White was defeated in a 1946 bid for Congress. But his activism only grew more intense, serving in Youth for Dewey in 1948, rising eventually to chair the New York State Young Republicans organization, as well as chairmanship of city and county GOP parties.[1]
His YR activism would serve as the base for his drive, in initial collaboration with William Rusher [2] and John M. Ashbrook,[3] to nominate a conservative Republican for President. The effort began quietly with meetings in 1961 with other party activists. The movement grew to a full-time operation with a Manhattan office opened in the spring of 1962; its address in the Chanin Building gave White the title of his account of the Goldwater campaign, Suite 3505.[4]
Goldwater's speech to the 1960 Republican Convention had included the phrase, "Let's grow up, conservatives. If we want to take this party back, and I think some day we can. Let's get to work."[5] White and other younger activists took this as their rallying cry, and ultimately convinced the reluctant Arizonan (after many misgivings) to run.
White was credited with organizing highly effective grassroots operations in the states that secured enough delegates for a surprising Goldwater victory on the first ballot, at the 1964 GOP Convention held in San Francisco. White's team bested the better-funded Eastern Establishment campaigns of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton and others.
However, after the convention, Goldwater declined to give White the lead role of RNC Chairman in the fall campaign, choosing to rely on who he termed "the professionals" at the Republican National Committee. According to author Theodore H. White (no relation), Clif was "dismissed" to "an outer circle of advisers." [6] White was left to organize an independent campaign, Citizens for Goldwater-Miller, on Goldwater's behalf. (This was the group that sponsored the national broadcast, "A Time for Choosing", featuring a speech by former actor Ronald Reagan, launching his national career in politics. Inexplicably, several of Goldwater's close advisers tried to stop the Reagan broadcast.)[7] On Election Night, the Senator was overwhelmed by incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, buried in an historic landslide.
In 1968, White guided the brief presidential campaign of recently elected California Gov. Ronald Reagan, helming his operation at the GOP Convention in Miami Beach. Reagan came in third with 182 delegates, behind Nelson Rockefeller and first-ballot winner Richard M. Nixon.
Back in New York, White managed the 1970 campaign of James L. Buckley for U.S. Senate on the Conservative Party line. Backed by President Nixon and (tacitly) Rockefeller, Buckley won the three-way contest with 38.8% of the vote. The Buckley campaign was his first with young pollster Arthur J. Finkelstein, with whom White would go into business in their consulting firm, DirAction Services.[8] Their 1972 campaigns included the Committee to Re-Elect the President (Finkelstein as one of several pollsters), and the successful bid of broadcaster Jesse Helms for U.S. Senate from North Carolina.
White broke with most conservatives and worked for President Gerald R. Ford against Ronald Reagan in the contest for the 1976 Republican nomination. After Reagan's election to the Presidency, he named White as director of Radio Marti, broadcasting pro-U.S. programming to Communist Cuba.
His foreign clients included President Carlos Andrés Pérez of Venezuela, in his successful 1973 election campaign. He also served as president of the International Association of Political Consultants, and of its U.S. branch.[1] His corporate clients included U.S. Steel, Standard Oil of Indiana and General Electric.[9]
White was the founding director of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University,[10] serving from 1983 until 1992 when he retired due to health reasons.
White wrote several books, including Suite 3505: The Story of the Draft Goldwater Movement (1967)[11] and Why Reagan Won: The Conservative Movement 1964-81 (1981),[12] both co-authored with William J. Gill.