Barry Goldwater’s Life and the Birth of Conservatism

When you here the word conservitism or conservative movement lots of people come to mind. People like Ronald Reagan, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhowser, William F. Buckley, and so on and so on. None stand out the most than Barry Goldwater. Barry Goldwater was one of the pioneers of the conservative movement. Goldwater remained a conservative until the day he died.

Barry Goldwater was born January 1, 1901, in Phoenix Arizona. He was the son of a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, and had become the voice of a booming Southwest with a conservitive policy written in his book. The Conscience of A Conservitive. Opposing the fabric of the welfare state, questioning the authority of the Supreme Court, and holding a nationalist foreign policy. He became a spokesperson for right-wing Republicans in their campaign against a big government, advocating instead greater state and local powers. Goldwater vigorously apposed welfare appropriations as socialistic and sought to curb public ownership of utilities. A strong anticommunist Goldwater supported military intervention in Vietnam and criticized efforts to achieve dente with the U.S.S.R. In 1952 Barry was elected Senator of Arizona, upsetting Senate Minority Leader Ernest McFarland, author of the widely popular G.I. Bill.

The conservative movement has reshaped American politics. Of course Barry Goldwater rose to national prominence in 1960 and led the conservative takeover of the Republican Party in 1964. In 1964 Goldwater was a presidential canidate but was unsuccessful. He was decisively defeated by Lyndon Baines Johnson. After Lyndon Johnsons overwhelming victory in 1964, Arthur M. Schelsinger Jr. was only one of many commentators who claimed that conservitism was finished, and that the Republican Party was forever doomed if it succumbed to become an ideological conservative party. Everyone saw the size of the defeat. Almost none grasped the implications of the fact that the Goldwater campaign had twiceas many volunteers than Johnson, or that while 66,000 people donated to Kennedy and Nixon campaign in 1960, over a million gave to the Goldwater campaign in 1964. Goldwater took his defeat with likeable equinamity saying when youve lost an election by that much it is not the case of whether you made the right speech or wore the wrong tie, it was just the wrong time.

Barry Goldwater attracted many people who believed in his ways or ways of thinking. One of person who took to Goldwater was Ronald Reagan. Goldwater begat Reagan on October 27, 1964 when he wrote the speech which was televised nationally for Reagan. Reagan went on to win the Governorship of California in 1966. Reagan was deemed the most successful political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic Convention with the Cross of Gold speech. Reagan later went on to win the presidency in 1980. But conservatives who had been galvanized by Goldwaters unapologetic extremism, venomous government bashing, and anticommunist ardor were not willing to their hero become an icon of the enemy. They insisted that Goldwater was the creator of the rightists movement that, despite his 1964 debacle, he eventually seized the White House under a smoother and more optimistic conservative Ronald Reagan. Many of Reagans positions have yet to prevail such as limiting government, outlawing abortion, restraining a imperial judiciary, reviving a belief in American exceptionalism. In 1995 Bill Clinton paid tribute to Reagan by adopting many of his political positions. Which had also been Goldwaters positions. Here is one time in which history was written by the loser.

Barry Goldwater remained the Senator of Arizona from 1952 until 1987 when he retired. In the final years of his life liberals battled conservatives for ownership of his political legacy. Barry Goldwater passed away on May 29, 1998 at the age of 89. Barry Goldwater reached through to a lot of people with his political views, and I can guarantee you we will see lots more conservatives with high office positions in the government. They say that Goldwaters true legacy is an uncompromising conservative.