[cotton1706]

The final paragraph:

Minnesota Sen. Gene McCarthy once remarked that the chief purpose of moderate Republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle is over. Absent Goldwater, it’s doubtful Republicans would have ventured near the battlefield at all. The rhetoric may have been imprudent, but the new fighting spirit it inculcated to the next generation of Republicans was essential. The historical record argues moderation in the pursuit of electoral viability is no virtue. Just ask Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.

[KC Burke]

I started our a Goldwater kid. I am a lot more well read and a lot more complex, but I’m still that 16 year old that rang doorbells for Barry in a lot of way.

[SevenofNine]

You know who support Barry Goldwater

Hillary Clinton when she was in teens

I just thinking if wasn’t for Barry Goldwather I wonder how Ronald Reagan come to politics

there some in history that Barry Goldwater was Jack Warner of Ronnie get into poltics

[ansel12]

The tea party is naturally made up mostly of social conservatives, and is more social conservative than the GOP rank and file.

The 1964 Goldwater was a different politician from what he aged into.

[Paine in the Neck]

Goldwater moved the Overton Window of national politics back away from the fascist center that FDR had dragged it to. This allowed Reagan to cut through the GOPe hedgerow that protected the ‘Rats. Since Reagan, and with the complicity of the GOPe, the Overton Window has been dragged back to the left. Palin and Cruz and very few others are doing yeoman work to reposition it back to where Goldwater had left it.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Looking back at it now is like looking back at a time during the Roman Empire when a relatively good citizen looked as if he might have had chance to become Emperor.

Regardless, the downward slide for them, and now for us has been inexorable. If not for Goldwater campaigning as he did would we have had Reagan? Would the New Deal legislation have been a bit less ridiculous if more moderate republicans had been around to whittle away at the edges?

Regardless we have gays in the military (and soon trannies), we have gay marriage, we have Obamacare, we have abortion on demand and paid for by tax dollars, we have basically everything every liberal back in the 60's could only dream of ... and of course they're still not satisfied.

[yarddog]

When I saw Goldwater on “People For The American Way” I was really irritated. I had no idea he was a social leftist.

[alloysteel]

“Extremism” was badly, and sadly, misinterpreted in this context. It somehow conjured images of rape, pillage and burning through small villages filled with ignorant but pious peasants, much like the Cossacks sacked the homes of those who did not comply with the will of the tyrant government they served.

Barry Goldwater, really much more of a libertarian than a Conservative at heart, did awaken some kindred spirits in his time, not the least of which was Ronald Reagan, who saw through the rhetoric and the countercharges, to a much clearer vision of what had to be done.

And for a while, America tried this new vision. Golden Ages are never recognized until they are gone.

[Mariner]

I can remember being a kid and hearing the breathless reporting from the Cow Palace...and images of fist-fights in the gallery and out front.

What grand times they were.

I was a committed Conservative in the Western Libertarian mold of Goldwasser from those heady days onward.

[SandRat]

AU H₂O

[x]

Good, well researched (though long) article.

I never got the point of that "shoot the wounded" quote and I'm not sure if he uses it right, but the conclusion -- "absent Goldwater, it’s doubtful Republicans would have ventured near the battlefield at all" -- is probably accurate.

Goldwater played a pivotal role in recreating Republicans as a real alternative to 60s liberalism, something all those politicians and pundits the article cites didn't see or didn't want to see.

Still, Hayward doesn't disprove the notion that Goldwater's candidacy meant losing seats that the GOP couldn't afford to lose.

The 1964 campaign was polarized from the outset -- Goldwater vs. Rockefeller or Scranton or Henry Cabot Lodge -- and bound to end badly for Republicans.

A candidate somewhere in between Barry and Rocky might have served the party well, but thee was no such candidate in the field.

[YHAOS]

The quotes cited herein (ML King Jr, Roy Wilkins, Sen Fulbright) appear to diametrically oppose Johnson’s declaration that men “more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”

“Hitlerism,” the “police state,” & “Stalinism” are to be found more in the legacies of King, Wilkins, and Fulbright than anywhere in America.
Ironic. Thanks for the BEEP!

[TBP]

•Martin Luther King Jr: “We see dangerous signs of Hitlerism in the Goldwater campaign.” •Civil rights activist Roy Wilkins: Goldwater’s election “would bring about a police state.” •Sen. J. William Fulbright: “Goldwater Republicanism is the closest thing in American politics to an equivalent of Russian Stalinism.”

All those thigns wer much more true of LBJ than Goldwater, and the people saying them knew that.

And if these things don't describe B. Hussein to a tee, I don't know what does.

[TBP]

Minnesota Sen. Gene McCarthy once remarked that the chief purpose of moderate Republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle is over.

Great line. I usually disagreed with Gene McCarthy, but he was a principled man who didn't change where he stood just to get votes, somewhat the liberal Goldwater. If we had more conservatives like Barry and more liberals like Gene McCarthy, we'd be better off.

[Still Thinking]

Civil rights activist Roy Wilkins: Goldwater’s election “would bring about a police state.”

What a patently absurd statement. Reminds me of that poster from bamahead or someone: Libertarians -- plotting to take over the world and leave you alone