Whats your opinion of Barry Goldwater?

[nickshepDEM]

Poll question: Whats your opinion of Barry Goldwater?

Just curious...

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 1, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a United States politician and a founding figure in the modern conservative movement in the USA as well as being a major inspiration for many of his youthful followers to join the libertarian movement. Goldwater personified the shift in balance in American culture from the Northeast to the West. A five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953-1965, 1969-87), he was the Republican Party candidate for the U.S. President in the 1964 election which he lost to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Many of the policies and ideas advocated by Goldwater were distinctly out-of-step with dominance of the New Deal coalition in the two decades following World War II. He was ridiculed in 1964 for being hopelessly old-fashioned. Yet he energized a conservative grass roots movement which sixteen years later nominated and elected his supporter Ronald Reagan, a conservative in the Goldwater mold. By the end of his life, however, Goldwater was criticizing the Christian Right's influence on the Republican Party.

[terrya]

1. He despised the religious right and its influence.

He would be disgusted and appalled to see the influence the religious right holds in the Republican Party today.

He also became a champion of gay rights towards the end of his life. Given the above, I wonder if there would be a place for him in the party today if he were still alive.

Overall, my opinion of him is positive.

[GatoLover]

2. It's amazing how the conventional wisdom on Goldwater has changed

since 1964. Who'd have thunk it?

[mitchum]

25. That's because it's far more conventional than it is wisdom

I still despise Goldwater

[GatoLover]

26. Fair enough but I think it's undeniable that the spectrum changed

while Goldwater didn't.

[davidinalameda]

3. I disagree with his stances

but I think he was a true leader

he fought the religious right in their take-over the Republican Party

he was a true conservative--wanted government out of the boardroom and bedroom

[tinrobot]

4. He was my senator for years...

A little conservative, but he had his priorities straight. He put his country ahead of god and money.

Good guy.

[niallmac]

5. At first I bought the mushroom cloud advert whole hog.

I learned about the mans integrity later.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. My Dad was a Goldwater conservative back in the day. Now he is a Green

[HereSince1628]

7. Goldwater was a raving anti-new deal radical

I think he could have been in with the BEFEE plotting JFK's assasination :tinfoilhat:

[SteppingRazor]

8. Yes, later in life he disagreed with the GOP, but...

earlier, he wanted to freaking nuke Vietnam.

His rise to power marked the end of the GOP as a party of multiple viewpoints -- the death of the liberal Republican. In an sense, Goldwater is to blame for Reagan, Bush, and everything we hate about the GOP today. Sure, he changed his tune later in life. But that doesn't change the fact that the world would be a better place if he had never been born.

Rot in hell, Barry.

[madame defarge]

9. As Dylan says...

Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.

http://bobdylan.com/songs/befree10.html

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. He wanted Curtis LeMay as a running mate!

In '68 the repubs went with Nixon because he was a moderate, next to Goldwater.

"Goldwater! In your heart, you know he's nuts!"

But comparing him with the Chimp, I had to mark him as merely 'negative' rather than 'very negative'.

[Tom Joad]

11. Lately he has said nothing I disagree with. eom

[GatoLover]

12. But has he said anything you've AGREED with???

:-) eom

[newswolf56]

13. Very negative. One of his campaign promises was to sell TVA --

to destroy the Tennessee Valley Authority by selling it to private commercial interests, thereby creating an early-day Enron in the Tennessee Valley and indeed much of the South. Goldwater's hatred of the New Deal -- and therefore his hatred of working Americans and the poor -- was palpable. He particularly despised TVA because in those years (before the Reagan/Bush/Bush efforts to destroy it) TVA was a flawless example of socialism in action.

In the South, where I was at the time, Goldwater was the Ku Klux Klan candidate, the Republican Party's first effort to mobilize the racist malevolence of the Dixiecrats. Democrats who have a positive opinion of this unabashed fascist (Goldwater was opposed to school desegregation and the 1964 Civil Rights Act too) are either too young to remember or have been brainwashed by the revisionism being peddled these days by corporate media.

[indepat]

14. Positive: while disagree on many issues a man of honor who put country

ahead of party. Back then we were wary Brry would bomb the north (Vietnam) and of course Johnson dropped, was it, four times the tonnage of bombs dropped in Europe during WWII. Best of all, he said extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice whereas it could strongly be argued this Administration (modern-day neocons) and other 'Pukes have practiced extremism in the destruction of liberty.

;) for Barry

:grr: for modern-day neocons and other "Pukes

[TechBear_Seattle]

15. Remember: Goldwater was thrown out of the GOP for being too "liberal"

Towards the end of his time in the Senate and during his retirement, he had little positive to say about the Republican Party as it existed in the 80s. Among his complaints were the rise of the religious right and the obsession of people like Buchannan and Gingrich -- former proteges who forced him out of power -- on citizens' private lives. As extreme as his views seemed in 1964, by 1984 his libertarian based conservatism made him seem soft on international affairs and a bleeding heart liberal on social policy. Nowadays, his stands on states-rights, personal liberty and the responsibility of America to keep treaties and other obligations with First Nations would put him noticeably to the left of most elected Democrats. Sad, isn't it, that a dyed-in-the-wool progressive should wax nostalgic about Barry Goldwater.

Among my favorite quotes:

"You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country, you just need to shoot straight."

"Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives."

[win_in_06]

16. I'm surprised by the results because Goldwater inspired Reagan,

who selected Big Bush, who spawned little Bush, who...

[darkstar]

17. As a man he may have had convictions and principles

that are lacking in many GOPers today, but I disagree, mostly, with his philosophical underpinnings.

I just read "Conscience of a Conservative within the last 2 months or so. I disagree w/ 80-90% of what he writes there. Another 10-15% I say "Good point, but..."

That said, I really don't know if this underlying philosophy changed (the book was written in early 60's). And I did admire his iconoclatic, issue-by-issues stances in the Dutch/Poppie years. But the philosophy that put him on the map I want no part of.

[Warpy]

18. Which Goldwater?

The firebrand who openly talked about going nuclear on Vietnam and who wanted to end all programs that helped human beings, or the mellowed elder statesman of 20 years later who wanted to kick Falwell's ass out of the party, approved of gay rights and womens' rights, and was a little more sensible about regulating private industry?

I like the older one. The younger one was wrong about too many things.

[darkstar]

20. Exacly.

[Leilani]

19. One of the last HONEST politicians

an honorable person, a good friend of JFK.

I doubt he ever looked at a poll.

He was an enviromentalist before anyone knew what that meant.

[MrBenchley]

21. In your guts, you know he's nuts....

[AntiCoup2K4]

22. He was the scariest son of a bitch on the planet in 1964

And the fact that he looks like a raving "liberal" compared to the neocons today should scare the Hell out of everyone :scared:

[Bridget Burke]

23. Somewhat Negative because I remember his early days.

But today's "Conservatives" make him look good.

[mitchum]

24. I like him just as he is

Never understand the people who want to engage in Goldwater revisionism.
He was the spearhead of the wingnut movement. Fuck him.