Although Dewey publicly supported Nelson Rockefeller in all four of his campaigns for Governor of New York, and backed Rockefeller in his losing 1964 bid for the Republican presidential nomination against Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, he did privately express concern and disappointment with what he regarded as Rockefeller's "spendthrift" methods as governor, and once told him "I like you Nelson, but I don't think I can afford you."(Smith, pp. 624–625) In 1968, when both Rockefeller and Nixon were competing for the Republican presidential nomination, Dewey was publicly neutral, but "privately, according to close friends, he favored Nixon."(Smith, p. 625)
