[PhilDragoo]

It's Goldwater.

I went to New York in 1964 with YAF in its project to draft Goldwater.

I went door to door for Goldwater at a time when America preferred a six-trillion-dollar War on Poverty, Medicare, and a mission to insure defeat in Vietnam.

When March, 1968, came around, Lyndon Baines Johnson was happy to have been a one-term president, a milepost on the Road to Reagan.

And it was Reagan who had so distinguished himself by putting his principles first, and leading, first, the Republican Party, and finally, the nation, in its new prosperity, its victory in the Cold War, its renaissance of our original Free Republic.

We are doing this.

[dcwusmc]

Barry Goldwater was a vastly underrated man, but one who had more principles in his little finger than most republicans have in their whole bodies, it seems. On the national level, I can only think of fewer than a dozen that I could favorably compare to him. And, though I had some issues with Reagan, there is one thing I can say with full assurance, after the Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter years, Ronald Reagan made me proud to still be wearing that uniform. He was able to put the honor and pride back into serving again, unlike those that sandwiched him, but especially Carter.