Posted on 08/26/2011 5:56:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s suggestions that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s monetary policies are “treasonous” might be just a rhetorical speed bump on his road to the White House.
The tough-talking Texas governor is likely to be far more careful about what he says and how he says it – especially after the message delivered via a POLITICO story on Friday (“Perry’s loose lips worry Hill Republicans”).
“This is a very critical period for Perry,” Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole told reporters Jonathan Martin and Jake Sherman. “He’s got to prove he won’t self-destruct.”
However, Perry’s controversial statements – about Texas secession, the unconstitutionality of Social Security, his refusal to acknowledge climate change, his comparing homosexuality to alcoholism, his doubts about evolution and his questioning of President Barack Obama’s patriotism — may have already inflicted grave damage and, perhaps, destroyed his chance to become president.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who has made similar jarring statements in the past few years, may also be waging a hopeless campaign for president.
Could it be possible that a candidate’s statements made months or years before the presidential election can render someone virtually unelectable — even if that person wins a major-party nomination? Have Perry and Bachman already suffered serious self-inflicted wounds?
It’s likely, for example, that Sen. George McGovern never had a chance against President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. Not because of specific statements, but rather due to McGovern’s liberalism and his perceived intimacy with the radical antiwar movement. Walter Mondale’s statements about coming tax increases in 1984 may have similarly destroyed any chance of defeating President Ronald Reagan.
But it’s Sen. Barry M. Goldwater’s 1964 Republican presidential campaign that may be more instructive for Perry, Bachmann — and the GOP primary voters who value winning the White House over ideological purity.
Well before the conservative Arizona senator captured the nomination in July 1964, he made a habit of uttering reckless and ill-considered comments that gradually cemented an image of Goldwater as an impulsive cowboy, at best; and a dangerous radical, at worst.
That is the same danger facing Perry (and, to a lesser degree, Bachmann) today.
In the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a majority of Americans considered nuclear war a very real prospect. Steady, sober and wise U.S. leadership by President John F. Kennedy had saved the world. Goldwater, at least in his public comments, seemed oblivious to that fact.
After the missile crisis, in April 1963, Goldwater was in full cowboy mode, chiding Kennedy for his unwillingness to challenge the Soviets over Cuba. “The question is,” Goldwater said, “are we afraid to go to war. If we are not willing to take risks in this world, we might as well give up.”
The following month, Goldwater bragged about the accuracy of U.S. nuclear missiles, and launched an indirect attack on Kennedy’s proposal for a manned moon mission: “I don’t want to hit the moon,” Goldwater said, “I want to lob one [presumably a nuclear missile] into the men’s room of the Kremlin and make sure I hit it.”
Goldwater also talked about using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate the forests of Vietnam, and giving North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders in the field the authority to use nuclear weapons without prior presidential approval.
Reckless talk about nuclear war was only the down payment on the rhetorical gifts Goldwater bestowed on his opposition. He suggested ending Social Security and public education, selling the Tennessee Valley Authority and, jokingly, “saw[ing] off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea.”
By the time Goldwater won the GOP nomination, he had a well-earned reputation as a bellicose extremist, which he haplessly reinforced by telling Republican convention delegates that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
On the night of Sept. 7, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign aired its famous “Daisy Girl” spot. In the commercial, aired only once as a paid ad on national TV, a tow-headed little girl counts as she plucks flower petals. Suddenly, a mission control countdown interrupts the tranquil scene, followed by apocalyptic images of a mushroom cloud and nuclear holocaust.
As the fiery cloud engulfed the screen, Lyndon Johnson’s voice intoned, “These are the stakes; to make a world in which all of God’s children can live — or go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die.”
The Daisy Girl spot was followed by a series of Johnson spots that stoked fears that a President Goldwater would start a nuclear war.
Campaign lore has it that the Daisy Girl spot and Johnson’s other nuclear-themed spots destroyed Goldwater. The polling data, however, suggest that Goldwater had already done most of that work himself. Johnson’s campaign spots merely served as a kiln that baked the radical cowboy image into something hard and durable.
Besides the polling numbers — which barely changed all 1964 – there is one bit of compelling evidence about the overwhelming baggage that Goldwater had brought to the fall campaign. The Daisy Girl spot — which many contend was a hard-hitting negative attack – never mentioned Goldwater’s name nor showed his image.
It didn’t need to. Voters knew what — and who — the spot was about.
Goldwater acknowledged as much in his 1988 memoir. “There was no doubt,” Goldwater wrote, “as to the meaning [of the Daisy Girl spot]. Barry Goldwater would blow up the world if he became president of the United States.”
Indeed, Goldwater had worked hard over the years to portray himself as a cowboy. And voters got the message.
As Republicans begin the process of choosing a presidential nominee, they would do well to study Goldwater’s ill-fated campaign and its self-inflicted wounds. The plainspoken senator’s extreme rhetoric — like Perry’s and Bachmann’s — had enormous appeal to many Republicans disgusted with the incumbent president’s social programs and defense policies.
Though Goldwater channeled the anger that eventually matured into the modern conservative movement, that rhetoric branded him as reckless and bellicose. His words and demeanor frightened moderates and independents looking for stability in an uncertain and dangerous world.
While the threat of nuclear war with the Soviets no longer hangs over our heads, it would be a mistake for Republicans, in their raw anger at President Barack Obama, to believe that independent voters will be any less interested in sober and responsible leadership than they were in 1964.
-- Robert Mann, a professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University’s Manship School, is the author of “Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater and the Ad that Changed American Politics,” due out in November.
I imagine providing free college tuition to people whom are invading your country might be considered teasonous as well...
Barry Goldwater was a great man. His book A Conscience of a Conservative was the most widely read political manifesto of the 20th century, and still a great read today, espousing conservative principles in the clearest of language.
We should be so lucky to get another Goldwater.
Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:13:29 AM by Jim Robinson
“..... if Palin does not run but Perry does, he’d probably suck all the air out of the race. Either way, ..... Perry would all be excellent alternatives to Obama the commie. Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare! …… Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:13:29 AM by Jim Robinson”
Also see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2764368/posts
A very realistic concern, in my opinion.
To make my position clear at the outset: I'm in Texas, I won't support Perry in the primary but I will support him if he's the nominee.
Understand that Perry is NOT a "conservative". He is a "conservative politician". The difference between conservative as a noun and conservative as an adjective is important.
In Texas, a conservative state, Perry had to be campaign as and govern as a "conservative politician" in order to succeed. Elected to national office, he may well prefer to govern as "some other kind of politician".
You get it. Comparing Perry and Goldwater - Goldwater was the real deal (and decidedly not ‘slick’). Perry has a cheesy greathair slickness about him that I just don’t trust. His positions shift with the wind. Like someone else said, ...waiting for Sarah.
If that's all Politico has got what is there to worry the ever mysterious and unknown "HILL REPUBLICANS" ~ who are the pukes who even talk to Politico.
Is this Luger, Hatch, Snow, ?
Cast my first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater.
I'm proud of it still today.
I agree with your assessment the nominee of the GOP will probably get real close to 400 EV’s and that is a winner.
Well, one thing I can say for sure....you are much older than me...but you done good.
I think the majority of the people think we should bomb the hell out of our enemies, win, and get the heck back to our own country.
Bingo! Goldwater would have done much better, and possibly even won, sans the emotions of the Kennedy assassination which happened the year before.
If there is a landslide victory for the Republican candidate, we also hope there is an equally large shift in the House and the Senate for the Republicans.
“I imagine providing free college tuition to people whom are invading your country might be considered teasonous as well...”
Illegal aliens in Texas are NOT getting free college tuition. If kids who were brought here illegally by their parent(s) have attended Texas schools and graduated from high school, they are granted instate tuition rates; but, they have to pay that tuition.
I like Perry, but he is no movement leader. Goldwater and Reagan were movement leaders. Goldwater lost, but Reagan had the ability to win over the voters. Perry is carrying much of the Reagan coalition with him, but this comparison is silly. Perry is a pretty mainstream candidate, simply governing with the 10th amendment in mind, and believing that the central government needs to get the heck out of the way and stop trying to control everyday life or tax it to death.
The left is losing it right now.
Narses wrote:
“..... if Palin does not run but Perry does, he’d probably suck all the air out of the race. Either way, ..... Perry would all be excellent alternatives to Obama the commie. Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare! …… Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:13:29 AM by Jim Robinson”
Actual Jim Robinson Quote:
“The presidential race is heating up. We now have conservatives Bachmann and Cain officially in the race fending off RINO Romney; and Palin and Perry could possibly jump in. My hopes are with Palin, but if she decides not to run I could be happy with Bachmann or Cain. Also, if Palin does not run but Perry does, he’d probably suck all the air out of the race. Either way, Palin, Bachmann, Cain or even Perry would all be excellent alternatives to Obama the commie. Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare!”
Jim Robinson, July 1, 2011
If the GOP wins the ones you listed, I am pretty sure that would win it. we might need one other state to get over the top. in 2004, Bush won with that list. I think Iowa went Red, too, if I recall correctly, but a combination of OH and FL with VA and NC should be enough in 2012. I suspect NH is a lock, and Iowa should be if the economy stays down.
Yep. The key:
“...Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare!”
Since Perry didn't say anything rediculous, they have to make up words for him. Perry never said Bernanke was treasonous. He said that IF Bernanke used monetary policy to influence the outcome of the next election, THAT would be almost treasonous.
Media can't even get direct quotes right.
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