The book was written by Barry Goldwater. It’s called, “The Conscience of a Conservative”. I read it on Monday, and today I can explain conservatism more clearly than I ever could. There is no question as to why I am a conservative. This is the book that can save America and the Republican party.
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I studied this book in college and still have my copy
Lately it’s got more dog earred than usual
How far we have fallen...
The future that Goldwater feared has come to pass.
As a country we have come to believe that we can legislate ourselves into prosperity, that we can become rich by moving money from one pocket to another at the point of a gun.
We are headed into a dark age. At some point, people of conscience and good character will muster the ability to fight. Until then, it is time to do whatever you can to ensure the financial well-being of your family. It will get very nasty in the years ahead. Economic liberty is approaching the buzz-saw.
God grant us the serenity to accept things we cannot change, the COURAGE to change things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.
I had to do a little digging but here’s how RINO Romney portrays conservative Barry Goldwater.
In Dec on Meet the Press, RINO Romney lied about Goldwater and said that his father George Romney had walked out of the 1964 GOP Convention because Goldwater was a racist and against the Civil Rights Act
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBK9yct7j4M
However Goldwater was not a racist but felt that the decision should be left up to the individual states
George Romney was well to the left of Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan.
Romney’s membership in the Mormon church was a factor in his campaign, with attention focusing on his church’s policy at the time of not allowing blacks to participate fully.
At the convention Goldwater had gotten 8883 votes and Romney 41
General election
The Fall Campaign
Although Goldwater had been successful in rallying conservatives, his charisma seemed to be inadequate for the general election. Shortly before the Republican Convention, he had alienated most Republicans by his vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which Johnson championed and signed into law. The Johnson camp used this to paint Goldwater as a racist. Goldwater argued that it was a matter for the individual states rather than federal legislation. Earlier comments followed Goldwater throughout his campaign. Once he called the Eisenhower administration “a dime store New Deal”, and the former president never fully forgave him. In December 1961, he told a news conference that “sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.” That comment came back to haunt him, in the form of a Johnson television commercial, as did remarks about making Social Security voluntary and selling the Tennessee Valley Authority. Goldwater was also hurt by the refusal of many prominent moderate Republicans to support him. Former Vice-President Richard Nixon and Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania loyally supported the GOP ticket and campaigned for Goldwater, but Governors Rockefeller of New York and Romney of Michigan all refused to endorse Goldwater and did not campaign for him. Some moderates even formed a “Republicans for Johnson” organization, although most prominent GOP politicians avoided being associated with it.
The New York Times front page from the day after the election: November 4, 1964.Eisenhower’s strong backing could have been an asset to the Goldwater campaign, but instead its absence was clearly noticed. When questioned about the Presidential capabilities of the former President’s younger brother, university administrator Milton S. Eisenhower, in July 1964, Goldwater replied, “One Eisenhower in a generation is enough.” The former president did, however, agree to appear in one Goldwater television advertisement [1]. A prominent Hollywood celebrity who vigorously supported Goldwater was Ronald Reagan. Reagan gave a well-received televised speech supporting Goldwater; it was so popular that Goldwater’s advisors had it played on local television stations around the nation. Many historians consider this speech to mark the beginning of Reagan’s transformation from an actor to a political leader. In 1966 Reagan would be elected Governor of California in a landslide.
Johnson positioned himself as a moderate, and succeeded in portraying Goldwater as an extremist. Goldwater had a habit of making blunt statements about war, nuclear weapons, and economics that could be turned against him. Most famously, the Johnson campaign broadcast a television commercial on September 7 dubbed the “Daisy Girl” ad, which featured a little girl picking petals from a daisy in a field, counting the petals, which then segues into a launch countdown and a nuclear explosion. The ads were in response to Goldwater’s advocacy of “tactical” nuclear weapons use in Vietnam. Another Johnson ad, “Confessions of a Republican”, tied Goldwater to the Ku Klux Klan. Voters increasingly viewed Goldwater as a right wing fringe candidate—his slogan “In your heart, you know he’s right” was successfully parodied by the Johnson campaign into “In your guts, you know he’s nuts,” or “In your heart, you know he might.” (some cynics wore buttons saying “Even Johnson is better than Goldwater!”)
The Johnson campaign’s greatest concern may have been voter complacency leading to low turnout in key states. To counter this, all of Johnson’s broadcast ads concluded with the line: “Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.” The Democratic campaign used two other slogans, “All the way with LBJ.” and “LBJ for the USA.”
The election campaign was disrupted for a week on October 20, 1964, with the passing of former president Herbert Hoover, because it was considered disrespectful to be campaigning during a time of mourning.
Results
The election was held on November 3, 1964. Johnson crushed Goldwater in the general election, winning over 61 percent of the popular vote, the largest percentage since the popular vote first became widespread in 1824. In the end, Goldwater won only his native state of Arizona and five Deep South states that had been increasingly alienated by Democratic civil rights policies. Because states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia had not voted Republican in any presidential election since Reconstruction, this was a major transition point for the South, and an important step in the process by which the Democrats’ former “Solid South” became a Republican bastion. Nonetheless, Johnson still managed to eke out a bare popular majority of 51%–49% (6.307 to 5.993 million) in the eleven former Confederate states.
The Johnson landslide defeated many conservative Republican congressmen, giving him a majority that could overcome the Conservative coalition.
In addition to Goldwater, I think the work of Ayn Rand is also a must read for understanding Conservative ideology. The collectivism that she fought against in the thirties and forties is emerging again today in the neo-progressivism of the American Left and is seeping back into the Republican party (as it did with Nixon, Ford, and Rockefeller).