Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.

Goldwater’s quip hinges on a double comparison: Humphrey’s rapid-fire speaking style is so relentless that the listener can’t absorb what’s being said, and the “Playboy…with your wife turning the pages” image adds comic frustration and sexual embarrassment. The joke implies not only speed but loss of control—someone else dictates the pace, leaving the audience perpetually behind. It also reflects mid‑20th‑century political humor that used risqué cultural references to sharpen ridicule. As a piece of campaign-era invective, it aims to reduce a rival’s rhetorical strength (energy, fluency) into a liability (breathless, overwhelming, impossible to follow).