were barry goldwater around today

[miss djax]

hey all,

i've seen goldwater's name pop up on this site a couple of times this week, and as someone who lives in az we're hard pressed to miss his influence ;)

i really enjoyed the hbo documentary from last year that discussed how his political ideology was seen as waaaay too far right back in the day, but has been essentially co-opted as standard left wing politics.

how would he think about today's republcan party?

personally i think he'd barely find a home there. as a staunch fiscal conservative he'd be outraged by the bush overspending. i don't think he'd have voted for iraq, i think he'd have been for going into afghanistan.

he'd be hands off on gay marriage, i think, and say that it's nothing the gov't should weigh in on at all.

same with abortion - it's a staunchly personal decision, and one the family should decide, NOT the gov't.

i think he'd be upset about faith based initiatives.

what happened to his classical conservative thoughts of limited government?


thoughts??

[tjakey]

Were Barry Goldwater around today he would be a Democrat.

[DMB]

Aaaaah! Nostalgia time. I remember that election campaign. The slogan was "In Your Heart You Know He's Right". Opponents countered with "In Your Guts You Know He's Nuts".

[Worldtraveller]

I like Goldwater, and would vote for him (probably) were he around today. I'm not sure how well he would do in the current political climate. I think he would be the (fiscal) conservative version of Dennis Kucinich: smart, has a lot of good ideas, but no one seems to take him seriously.

I'm pretty certain he would be outcast from the current (social) conservative republican party, though.

Full disclosure: I also consider myself an Arizonan at heart, and am a native of Az. :p

[nygreenguy]

He wouldnt fit into any party. He actually spoke his mind and wasnt a bitch.

[miss djax]

Were Barry Goldwater around today he would be a Democrat.

i think you're probably right.

when his grandson, ty, came out of the closet, he did these psa's that were of he and ty and they said 'you don't have to be straight to shoot straight' :D

[Garnet]

I lived in AZ for most of my life.

Having said that, I think he would be horrified at the direction of the Republican party today. He would be one of the few standing up and hollering that "family values platforms" are, in Goldwater parlance, god damned red herrings.

I got to chat with him once at an art gallery. The man had presence.

[Joykins]

Where does the classical conservative fit in on a political map these days? I'm assuming Bush and the religious right spoiled the GOP for them.

Obligatory lyric dump

We're the bright young men
Who wanna go back to nineteen-ten
We're Barry's boys
We're the kids with a cause
Yes a government like grandmama's
We're Barry's boys
We're the new kind of youth at your Alma Mater
Back to silver standards and solid Goldwater
Back to when the poor were poor and rich were rich
And you felt so damn secure just knowing which were which

[Troglodyte]

It's entirely possible that we could see a splitting or dissolving of the RNC within the next couple of years if the conservatives decide to completely divorce themselves from said RNC.

Nothing is set in stone. I speculated last fall that this election would shake either party to its core whichever way the tally went.

[Harry Bosch]

It's entirely possible that we could see a splitting or dissolving of the RNC within the next couple of years if the conservatives decide to completely divorce themselves from said RNC.

Nothing is set in stone. I speculated last fall that this election would shake either party to its core whichever way the tally went. Naw. I'll bet that you are relatively young? Politics is cyclical. The dems are running wild now. I guaranty you that in a few years, people will get tired of the dems, and the republicans will sweep into power. And everyone will declarare that the dems would be "shaken to the core" and they will be dissolved! By the way, I'm a democrat.

[RBH]

Where does the classical conservative fit in on a political map these days? I'm assuming Bush and the religious right spoiled the GOP for them.Writing as one (I'm old enough to have voted for Goldwater after I finished four years in the U.S. military), the answer is nowhere, at least as far as political parties are concerned.

[Eudaimonist]

Were Barry Goldwater around today he would be a Democrat.

Nah, if anything he'd be a Libertarian.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[boneyard bill]

Miss DJax writes:

i really enjoyed the hbo documentary from last year that discussed how his political ideology was seen as waaaay too far right back in the day, but has been essentially co-opted as standard left wing politics.

Wow, whoever did that documentary had to have been VERY creative indeed, not to mention loose with the facts. I'm old enough to remember the Goldwater campaign although, back then, I worked for Rockefeller. There's not much of anything about that campaign that would be "left wing" today.

how would he think about today's republcan party?

personally i think he'd barely find a home there. as a staunch fiscal conservative he'd be outraged by the bush overspending. i don't think he'd have voted for iraq, i think he'd have been for going into afghanistan.

You're painting him as another Ron Paul who opposed Iraq and said we should have gone into Afghanistan heavier and sooner. That's possible, but Goldwater was very, very hawkish in 1964. He was a Major-General in Air Force Reserve. He voted against the nuclear test-ban treaty and enthusiastically endorsed Johnson's intervention in Vietnam. He openly called for an "aggressive" foreign policy. Not much Ron Paul rhetoric there. I think it's likely that he would have supported the Iraq War, but I'll admit that the was independently-minded enough that he might have opposed it.

On other issues, he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He called for Social Security to be made voluntary. He called for the elimination of the draft. He opposed a federal health care plan for the elderly. He proposed to cut taxes every year for five consecutive years. Doesn't sound very left-wing to me.



he'd be hands off on gay marriage, i think, and say that it's nothing the gov't should weigh in on at all.

same with abortion - it's a staunchly personal decision, and one the family should decide, NOT the gov't.

i think he'd be upset about faith based initiatives.

what happened to his classical conservative thoughts of limited government?

The government defines marriage so the government has to weigh in. You're right, however, insofar as he would probably say it's a matter to be left to the states. However, that's not the case because of the "full faith and credit" clause of the constitution. If you legalize it in one state, you legalize it in all. That's why Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, to negate the "full, faith, and credit" clause. I'd say that Goldwater would not have endorsed gay marriage in 1964. In his later years, he might have. Remember, nobody stays the same throughout their lives. After his first wife died, Goldwater married a liberal young chick and became more liberal. I believe he ended up endorsing Bill Clinton in his old age.

I agree that he probably would have supported legalized abortion and would have opposed faith based initiatives.