Barry Goldwater

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 1, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a United States politician and a founding figure in the modern conservative movement in the USA. Goldwater personified the shift in balance in American culture from the Northeast to the West. A five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953-1965, 1969-87), he was the Republican Party candidate for the U.S. President in the 1964 election which he lost to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Goldwater and the revival of American conservatism

Historian Rick Perlstein, in his book Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, explained Goldwater's impact on the American political scene by way of analogy:

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:"Think of a senator winning the Democratic nomination in the year 2000 whose positions included halving the military budget, socializing the medical system, reregulating the communications and electrical industries, establishing a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans, and equalizing funding for all schools regardless of property valuations—and who promised to fire Alan Greenspan, counseled withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, and, for good measure, spoke warmly of adolescent sexual experimentation. He would lose in a landslide. He would be relegated to the ash heap of history. But if the precedent of 1964 were repeated, two years later the country would begin electing dozens of men and women just like him. And not many decades later, Republicans would have to proclaim softer versions of those positions to get taken seriously for their party's nomination."

Related Topics:
Alan Greenspan - World Trade Organization

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The Republican party recovered from the 1964 election debacle, picking up 47 seats in the House of Representatives in the mid-term election of 1966. That year saw two future Presidents elected to office for the first time in their respective careers: Ronald Reagan was elected to the first of two terms as governor of California, and George H. W. Bush won election to a House seat representing Texas. Further Republican successes ensued, including Goldwater's return to the Senate in 1968, although he played little part in the election of Richard Nixon. Throughout the 1970s, as the conservative wing gained influence in the party, Goldwater remained one of its standard-bearers.

Related Topics:
Mid-term election of 1966 - Ronald Reagan - Governor of California - George H. W. Bush - Texas - Richard Nixon - 1970s

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However, by the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater showed an increasing libertarian streak that put him at odds with the Reagan Administration and religious conservatives. Consistently libertarian, Goldwater, unlike many of his conservative followers, viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention. Goldwater was a passionate defender of personal liberty, and saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties. In his 1980 U.S. Senate re-election campaign, he won support from religious conservatives but in his final term voted consistently to uphold legalized abortion. Notwithstanding his prior differences with Eisenhower, Goldwater in a 1986 interview rated him the best of the seven Presidents with whom he had served.

Related Topics:
1980s - Ronald Reagan - Religious right - Libertarian - Reagan Administration - Abortion

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After his retirement, in 1987, Goldwater described the conservative Arizona Governor Evan Mecham as "hardheaded" and called on him to resign, and two years later stated the Republican Party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks", i.e., supporters of TV evangelist Pat Robertson and Mecham.

Related Topics:
Evan Mecham - Pat Robertson

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In the 1990s he became a virtual outcast of the GOP leadership, aggravating so many social conservatives that some in Arizona suggested stripping his name from state Republican party headquarters, although the suggestion was never seriously followed up on. He endorsed Democrat Karan English in an Arizona congressional race, urged Republicans to lay off Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals: "Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar." He also said, "You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight." He acknowledged, however, that in 37 years of military and reserve service he had not personally known any homosexual service members. In 1996 he told Bob Dole, who mounted his presidential campaign with less than ecstatic support from hard-line conservatives, "We're the new liberals of the Republican Party. Can you imagine that?"

Related Topics:
1990s - Karan English - Clinton - Whitewater scandal - Homosexuals - Julius Caesar - Bob Dole

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He became known for the occasional, humorous off-color remark; he once told talk-show host Jay Leno and guest Roseanne Barr that he planned to get a tattoo of a lipstick pucker "right on my ass."

Related Topics:
Jay Leno - Roseanne Barr - Tattoo

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Goldwater died in Paradise Valley, Arizona from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 89.

Related Topics:
Paradise Valley, Arizona - Alzheimer's disease

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