GOLDWATER'S LEGACY
Forty six years ago I observed a most peculiar candidate for President; Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Senator Goldwater was the first truly ideological conservative to attain a Presidential nomination and his ideological purity destroyed any chance of his running a competitive campaign, losing 44 of 50 states, and garnering only 38.5% of the vote compared to Lyndon Johnson's 61.1%.
Most Americans had no idea what an ideological conservative candidate even was, but when they learned about its main tenant: opposition to the New Deal programs which helped alleviate the Great Depression and helped create the longest period of prosperity in our history, they turned away in droves. They also learned it meant such limited government that there was no room to allow federal intervention to allow people of color to purchase from a private motel, a room.
Goldwater himself identified exactly who he was, and in the process doomed his campaign from the get-go, with these famous two sentences in his Presidential nomination acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"
Tuesday, we saw the emergence of Rand Paul, the Tea Party favorite who upset the establishment candidate for Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Kentucky. Baby Paul (his father Ron is the libertarian conservative Congressman from Texas), like Goldwater, has basically marginalized his candidacy by presumably channeling Barry Goldwater's opposition to federal legislation preventing discrimination by private businesses. Watching him spend twenty minutes Wednesday, trying to avoid answering the blunt question: "Would you allow private businesses to discriminate on the basis or race, gender or sexual orientation?", was painful to watch, even for one who is repelled by Paul's belief system.
But up in Libertarian Heaven, the original extremist Barry Goldwater, is smiling that one of his illegitimate heirs is carrying on the battle to legitimize extremism and denigrate moderation.
Most Americans had no idea what an ideological conservative candidate even was, but when they learned about its main tenant: opposition to the New Deal programs which helped alleviate the Great Depression and helped create the longest period of prosperity in our history, they turned away in droves. They also learned it meant such limited government that there was no room to allow federal intervention to allow people of color to purchase from a private motel, a room.
Goldwater himself identified exactly who he was, and in the process doomed his campaign from the get-go, with these famous two sentences in his Presidential nomination acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"
Tuesday, we saw the emergence of Rand Paul, the Tea Party favorite who upset the establishment candidate for Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Kentucky. Baby Paul (his father Ron is the libertarian conservative Congressman from Texas), like Goldwater, has basically marginalized his candidacy by presumably channeling Barry Goldwater's opposition to federal legislation preventing discrimination by private businesses. Watching him spend twenty minutes Wednesday, trying to avoid answering the blunt question: "Would you allow private businesses to discriminate on the basis or race, gender or sexual orientation?", was painful to watch, even for one who is repelled by Paul's belief system.
But up in Libertarian Heaven, the original extremist Barry Goldwater, is smiling that one of his illegitimate heirs is carrying on the battle to legitimize extremism and denigrate moderation.
posted by Walt Zlotow at 4:45 PM
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