Photos courtesy CC Goldwater This self-portrait of Barry Goldwater was taken during one of his many trips down the Colorado River in the 1960s. “He had a love for this state that had no boundaries,” says Michael Goldwater, Barry’s youngest son. “He claimed the Grand Canyon was his mistress.”

REMEMBERING MR. CONSERVATIVE

ENJOY A SLIDESHOW OF PHOTos FEATURED IN THE HBO DOCUMENTARY FEATURING BARRY GOLDWATER

Much has been written and broadcast about Arizona’s best-known politician, but never has his story been told from the family’s point of view. This month, in a new HBO documentary, Barry Goldwater’s granddaughter shares her perspective of the man she affectionately knew as “Paka.”

CC Goldwater always thought she resembled the little girl in the 1964 presidential campaign commercial – the one that was used by Lyndon Johnson to peg her grandfather, Barry Goldwater, as a warmonger. In the commercial, the longhaired, freckle-faced child sits in a field of daisies, counting flower petals one by one as she playfully picks them from their stems. She is probably 5, the same age as CC when Goldwater and LBJ faced off for the White House.

Soon, the wholesome scene changes. The girl’s blithe voice is cut off by one that’s more ominous – a man mechanically counting down to impact – and the field of daisies is suddenly swallowed up by the image of an erupting mushroom cloud, followed by a daunting message of Doom’s Day.

The commercial ran only once, but it was enough to mar Goldwater’s campaign and target him as a fearsome proponent of nuclear weapons – a portrayal CC couldn’t comprehend at the time, or for years afterward.

“I didn’t understand why he was so vilified. He was always just my grandfather,” CC explains in Mr. Conservative, Goldwater on Goldwater, an upcoming documentary that she’s made about her grandfather.

The film, which debuts on HBO on September 18, opens with the controversial “daisy commercial,” followed by CC’s memory of the heated 1964 presidential election and a historical recap of other significant periods in Goldwater’s political tenure, including his controversial stance on Civil Rights, his pivotal role in Watergate and his staunch loyalty to conservatism.

But the film also offers an intimate view of Barry Goldwater as a loving but often detached family man, as well as a photographer, avid letter writer, HAM-radio junkie and friend of the Hopis. Most importantly, though, from CC’s perspective, it offers a look at Goldwater the grandfather. Featuring archival footage from both his professional and personal lives, and narration from CC, Mr. Conservative is perhaps the most personal portrait ever made of the rugged Arizonan and five-term U.S. senator.

Even CC admits to learning a few new things about the man whom she knew best as “Paka” (a supposed Native American word that Barry told her meant “grandfather”).

“I knew him so personally,” she says in a recent interview with PHOENIX magazine. “He knew that I loved purple, and he knew my birthday, and I knew that he was always very clever and witty. I knew him as a grandfather, but I never knew his political stance. I never knew how important he was to Watergate. I knew that he voted against Civil Rights, but I never really knew why. I never really knew what an uproar it was and how incredibly controversial it was in 1964. I really think that doing this film opened my eyes to a [different] side of this man.”

The thought had been nagging at CC Goldwater for quite some time. She wanted to create a retrospective of her grandfather, knowing that if she didn’t, someone else would, and nobody would have done it with the “kindness and consideration that a family member would have,” she says.

“I bear his name, and I feel like I have a responsibility to his legacy,” adds CC, 47, who lives in Paradise Valley. “So I knew that there was something I wanted to do, but I didn’t know whether it was going to be sharing my personal photo book or publishing beautiful letters he wrote my mother, or making a movie.”

With her strong desire to do something – but only a faint idea of what that something would be – CC headed to Los Angeles two years ago to brainstorm with longtime friend and movie producer Tani Cohen. The pair settled on the idea of creating a docudrama for HBO that focused on the 1964 presidential election, but executives there quickly shot the idea down. Consider making it a straight documentary, HBO told them, and there might be something there. They did, and in February 2005, the network gave the project the green light.