You gotta' keep up on this stuff.
Barry's biggest contribution to political life came in the form of political theory ~ not ideology.
It was his contention that the "Normal curve" didn't reflect American political thought with the left on the left and the right on the right with a big bunch of moderates in the middle.
Instead, he came up with the bi-modal design ~ which had a major mode we can call Republican and another we can call Democrat, but only two of these things, and neither one actually overlapping on the basis of ideology.
He applied a strictly economic caste to it's existence. However, he got it right that the way to win was to first protect your base then peel off a faction from the other mode. Going to the middle turns out, under Goldwater's analysis, to be very, very stupid because NOBODY IS THERE!
Later analysts have taken Goldwater's observation and turned it into quite an accurate predictive model. LBJ took it and turned it into political victory in 1964. He first pushed through the civil rights acts ~ with the help of the Republicans, then he promised blacks he'd do that again the next year if they voted for him.
The Republican wing of the African-American community moved to LBJ and never looked back. He got 97% of their votes ~ not just the 70% JFK had gotten.
Russian analysts looking around for ways to stabilize political life in post USSR Russia looked over the same issue and noticed that SINGLE MEMBER DISTRICTS lent themselves easily to explaining why the USA and UK tended to have two parties (Or two modes). The deal is ya' gots' ta' win, and it's best to get 50% + 1 vote! So, parties form to get a winning candidate over the line. And, in almost Hegelian fashion, an opposition rises up to beat them and get their guy in office instead. (That's the old thesis/anti-thesis stuff that used to be so popular with the commies ~ in this case political parties do appear to be derived from a similar phenomenon, although some have argued that football is a much better model).
I got there a good decade earlier and have been writing about the process since the mid-1970s. Since LBJ won with Goldwater's idea, and then Nixon did the same, and then Reagan did it too, no one has "gone to the middle" for anything! Well, at least no one who intends to win has done that ~ and sure as shootin' Romney's MIttbots talk about their boy going to the middle.
Sorry guys, still nobody in the middle!
Interesting, it is obvious that Mitt’s selection of Ryan means he is NOT going to the middle.
Right and Left, Liberal and Conservative are labels which no long have any real meaning since the meanings of the terms have either switched or become obsolete.
The key concepts now involve degrees of purity around some idea. For the RATS it is the idea of a government with sufficient power to take what it wants from the rich and give it to their clients.
For the far Right it is the idea of ANTI-government which contains the seeds of its defeat. Since there is no patronage to come from anti-government it is very difficult to organize any kind of professional political establishment to fight (or even understand) the HIGHLY professional party of Government.
We had anti-government of the Left which defeated HHH and anti-government of the Right which motivates today’s conservatives. The former was to a specific government/policy the latter is as a philosophic conclusion.
It is hard to see the latter winning any permanent victory given the utter corruption, ignorance of the American voter.