Flying High, by William F. Buckley Jr.

Flying High is a memoir of the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign by noted  conservative columnist and pundit, William F. Buckley, Jr. I really had high hopes for this book, but I found it a little opaque.
One bit of interest, on a trip to Antarctica, Goldwater mentions that the continent is the "principal generator of the energy that governs the metabolism of the earth...There is everything there, potentially: the control of the weather; the answer to the fresh-water problem. A vat of energy greater than the known supply of the world's oil. If I had been elected president, you'd have seen it all come to life." Makes you wonder about the road not taken, eh?
There are also a number of good quotes taken from The Conscience of a Conservative. On the question of federal aid to education, Goldwater wrote, "The truth, of course, is that the federal government has no funds except those it extracts from the taxpayers which reside in the various States. The money that the federal government pays to State X for education has been taken from the citizens of State X in federal taxes, and comes back to them, minus the usual Washington brokerage fee." I think that's one of the best descriptions of the fallacy of thinking that the federal government can perform any function cheaper than the private sector, or the local government, that I've ever heard. "Brokerage fee", indeed.
Buckley  likes to demonstrate his superior vocabulary, which I found a bit irritating. One sentence begins, "William Scranton...felt an afflatus on the question of Goldwater..." Huh? Who uses words like that to convey anything but a perceived superiority to the reader? Later on, Buckley writes, "There had been cheers of joy to greet those words. But the diapasonal opposition drowned out the good moments..." Go ahead, look up diapasonal, I'm waiting.
While there are some good anecdotes about times spent with Goldwater, the book really isn't so much about him at all, but more of an exposition that if Goldwater had only listened to WFB and his buddies, rather than trusting his campaign staff, he would have won the presidency.
If you're a true political junkie, go ahead and read this one, but don't say I didn't warn you.