Barry Goldwater: A Liberal

I think this is very revealing. The New York Times is planning a story, previewed in Editor and Publisher, that points out the fact that, if he were active today, Barry Goldwater would be a liberal.

An interview in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine with C.C. Goldwater reveals that her HBO film to be aired Sept. 18 paints her late grandfather, Sen. Barry Goldwater, "as a kind of liberal," with testimonials from Al Franken, Sen. Ted Kennedy, James Carville and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In fact, Hillary campaigned for Goldwater in 1964 in his race for president against Lyndon Johnson. "Hillary was a Goldwater girl," says the filmmaker, interviewed by Deborah Solomon. "She passed out cookies and lemonade at his campaign functions."

Solomon calls Goldwater "a half-Jewish cowboy from Phoenix."

The film -- made on a budget of $800,000 -- will note that the straight-talking Sen. Goldwater, author of the classic "The Conscience of a Conservative" (soon to be reissued by Princeton University Press) favored abortion rights and allowing gays in the military, and refused to attend President Nixon's funeral because he "cheated" the country. 'NYT' Sunday Preview: Barry Goldwater ... Hero of Democrats?

You know, I grew up in Goldwater Country. I was born in Phoenix back when it was a little farm town. The Goldwater family had been around there for a hundred years, and my dad knew Barry Goldwater because they were both ham radio operators. My parents were "Goldwater Republicans" of the old school, like just about everybody around there in those days.

Even as a boy, I had no interest in politics, so I'm not going to take any hard line about him, but in Phoenix we always had the idea that he was a straight-talking man of clear conscience, who tried to help people and believed America should be strong and proud, and all that still sounds good to me.

There is a good 1998 article online, published by the Arizona Republic (where I used to be a paperboy, on my Schwinn):

* Goldwater had won support of abortion opponents in his 1980 U.S. Senate re-election campaign, but in his final term, he voted consistently to uphold the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion. Later in life, he was honored by Planned Parenthood.

* In 1981, Goldwater assailed the founder of the Moral Majority, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Responding to Falwell's statement that all good Christians should be concerned about the Supreme Court nomination of Arizonan Sandra Day O'Connor, he said, "I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

* In 1987, Goldwater, who had described then Gov. Evan Mecham as "hardheaded," called on the Republican maverick to resign.

In all fairness ... Ev Mecham was not only "hardheaded," he was totally out of control, one of the first of the current crop of rightwing nuts.

* In 1989, Goldwater said the Republican Party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks," a reference to forces supporting TV evangelist Pat Robertson and Mecham.

* In 1992, he endorsed Democrat Karan English for Congress over Republican Doug Wead.

* In June 1993, Goldwater declared that the military should lift its ban on gays in the military. He also railed against discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace. Conservative pioneer became an outcast

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A very interesting change has come over the country.

There's a lot more in this Arizona Republic article, you might want to look at it ... or wait and see what the NYT has.

In a 1994 commentary published in The Arizona Republic, he spoke proudly of the GOP's traditional stance for "individual rights and liberties."

"The positive role of limited government has always been the defense of these fundamental principles," he said.

"The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please, as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process."

--The complete opposite of what today's "conservatives" believe, that everybody needs to be like them.

In the same article, Goldwater warned that "the radical right has nearly ruined our party."

"Its members do not care about the Constitution and they are the one making all the noise," he said.

See, through all this sex-ed stuff, it has occurred to me that there is a lot of agreement, really, between real conservatives and liberals. I have often said, there is a possibility of a debate, of a discussion, where things get worked out. The problem is not really a conflict between conservatives and liberals.

Because, see, people like Ann Coulter, George Bush, Rush Limbaugh ... are not conservative at all. These are people -- the "kooks," in Goldwater's language -- who have stolen the label "conservative" and run away with it. They're not interested in individual rights and liberties, quite the opposite; and do we need to talk about small government? America has never seen government spending, and the intrusion of government in people's private lives, like we have now that these guys are in charge.

The only overlap I see between Goldwater's conservatism and today's faux-conservatives is a too-casual reliance on military solutions to diplomatic problems. Goldwater had some over-the-top ideas about using the threat of military might to intimidate enemies; maybe some of it was just talk, but the truth is, you can't take the chance. We shouldn't have in 2004, and we couldn't in 1964, either. In those days people were smart enough to vote against it.

For me personally, I think having grown up in the desert, and knowing that Goldwater's people were desert people, gives you a sense of the kind of freedom, the kind of crankiness, that he stood for. You go out to Eloy or Bisbee or Clifton-Morenci or Apache Junction or Prescott, and get out of your car and talk to people, and you'll see they have strong opinions, and they don't care what you think, if you're good people you'll get along with them, but if you want to tell them what to believe you're out of luck. There's a kind of rattlesnake toughness that develops out there, a self-reliance that permits no nonsense; the sun turns your skin to leather, the isolation gives you time to think, those desert rats out there are unique, every person different from the next. They value their differences and will fight for the right -- their own, and their neighbor's -- to be whatever it is they feel they are, without having to justify it to anyone or explain themselves.

It is fascinating and surprising to look back and see that Barry Goldwater, the father of the conservative movement, would be, by today's standards, a liberal.