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Why Barry Goldwater Couldn't Support Obama
The Goldwater name carries with it the standard of modern conservatism and has shaped the Republican Party for decades, waving proudly and with the dedication my father brought to everything in his life. However, that standard recently has been hijacked and used without any grounding in reality.
Being Barry Goldwater's son and living in Arizona, one would assume that I would be voting for our state's senator, John McCain. Well, I am. The decision truly is a no-brainer.
In a previous article, my niece CC implied that the Goldwater family would support Obama. I don't resent my niece's beliefs, she is after all entitled to the freedom of choice we all enjoy as Americans -- however, I do resent what she has done. When she speaks, she should speak for herself and not imply that she is a representative or spokesperson for the Goldwater name. When I speak, I represent my own thinking and never imply I speak for anyone else.
Before one can even attempt to speak for the reputation and beliefs of the Goldwater family, it might be helpful to re-read the Conscience of a Conservative that Barry Goldwater, Sr. wrote and be reminded of the principles of what it means to be a Goldwater conservative. My niece owes the family that at least if she thinks her public endorsement is so important.
Further, that endorsement should at least contain the specifics of what she thinks my father would find so appealing about Obama. Is it his tax policy on small businesses that will increase taxation for over four million people or half of the top one percent of income earners? Is it his anti wealth policy when he advocates increasing taxes and doing away with the capital gains tax? Is it his universal health care program? Who will pay for that? Is it his so-called education program that calls for free college education and offers more federal intrusion into our education process? Or maybe it is just his lack of foreign policy experience?
When anyone makes this kind of leap they at least owe specifics and not generalizations. It's this kind of blind reasoning that is helping liberal Democrats take over our government with a veto-proof Congress and allowing free control of the executive and legislative branches. I have to ask CC if she thinks her grandfather would want this. Absolutely not. He would view this as dangerous and I'm surprised she doesn't.
Barry Goldwater was one of the icons of the Republican Party and, yes, would be unhappy with many of the recent failures from within. I speak about this all the time and how mad I am that Republicans have lost their way. However, we do not find our way back by sheepishly going over to the other side. My father worked to rebuild the party in 1964 by taking it back from the liberal Establishment. He would work to do the same thing today.
CC does not help the Republican Party nor the cause by minimizing John McCain. McCain may not be everything she wants in a President or hold her exact values, but she should work within the party to promote the ideals Barry Goldwater stood for. Endorsing one of the most liberal Senators in Congress is certainly not the way to help fix any problem she sees; instead it is a betrayal of everything my father advocated government should be. My father would never endorse a candidate or a party that wanted to grow government, raise taxes or in any way step on our freedoms.
Together the Goldwaters, including CC, should work together to redefine the Republican Party and make it the model Barry Goldwater Sr. stood for.
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Mr. Goldwater, I have to wonder how you could personally support some of today's republicans. Do you know what they think of Senator Barry Goldwater? When I mentioned him to Cheney-Bush political appointees at the NEH, they seemed offended. Although I am not a Republican, I respected him. I think you must know why they don't even want him mentioned, nor do they consider him an icon of 'their' party. I really don't think the Senator has a great deal in common with the Bush-Cheney administration and their supporters, indeed with many Republicans of the last 25 years, especially on social issues in which both Senator Goldwater and his wife took an interest and certainly not on the economy.
GoldWater Republican for Obama
Part 5
Why I support Barack Obama:
I could keep going on and on over almost every issue, but it really just boils down to CHANGE! I know that I sound cliche but we really do need a complete overhaul in almost every arena. If Obama can just get the ball rolling on even a quarter of the changes he wants to make, we can come back from this. Not without a fight and it will be hard, but these last 8 years have our country so messed up in so many ways, that rotting stench will become a plague. I am so disgusted and ashamed of what has been allowed to happen through this administration, I will not bring a child into this country without hope of change. I want to have a baby next year. This election will decide for me whether my child will be born American or not. I am so fed up I am ready to leave, and move somewhere else. I love my country! I love our political system. I don't love watching it fall! Didn't we learn anything from the Romans?
Missi Colvin
GoldWater Republican for Obama
Part 4
Why I support Barack Obama:
On Health Care, well this is personal! My mother retired independently wealthy at the age of 50. However she could not get insurance even though she could afford it, because she had cervical cancer 25 years ago. She passed away April 18, 2008 from cancer, by the time that they found it, it was to late. She was 54 years old. She saw many doctors who merely dismissed her complaints as a pulled muscle, for a year and a half. By the time she demanded that they check for everything, it was to late they gave her 6 months. She made it 7. Given proper care she would still be here. It would have been treatable, if only they paid attention to her, but without insurance, the doctors wouldn't run the tests that needed to be done. In that 7 months she couldn't get any help, she was to sick for insurance and to rich for help. When she passed everything that she had worked so hard for was all gone. Even her house went into foreclosure. Hospice was the only help she got, she was to young for Social Security, and wasn't sick long enough for Disability. If only she could have had insurance, maybe she might have gotten the chance to be a grandmother.
Missi Colvin
GoldWater Republican for Obama
Part 3
Why I support Barack Obama:
On Economy, well I don't think this is just a recession, I see this as the beginning of a depression. If we don't turn this around now, we will soon pass the point of no return. This one will make the Great Depression look more like a minor hick-up. There is and old saying that comes to mind: "No great civilization will be taken down from the outside before it rots from within." Well something is starting to stink! When you get on an airplane they tell you that in the event of pressure loss, you should secure your own oxygen mask first, before helping others. This is basic logic, if we weren't so busy taking care of other countries, maybe we wouldn't be so weak here at home. Just like a parent, they can't take care of their children, if they don't take care of themselves first. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?
Missi Colvin
GoldWater Republican for Obama
Part 2
Why I support Barack Obama
On education, we are lost. Our teachers are responsible for molding our future, yet we treat them more like babysitters. We don't appreciate them, we don't honor them, we barely pay them, and worst of all we don't give them the tools and skills that they need to teach. Our gifted students should be preparing to rule the world, and they are falling through the cracks of the system. Gifted students are failing because they are being taught at the lowest common denominator. The future of our country and our world is in their hands, but when they lose interest in their education, we lose our future. I am not saying that other students are not important as well, but we make accommodations for them, why does that not go both ways. Who knows how much further we could be if our best and brightest could be inspired as well. I was one of those students that fell through those cracks, and might I add so was Albert Einstein. Luckily his gifts weren't wasted, but mine were. I wonder how many others spent their lives knowing they were not living up to their capabilities, because they didn't make the grade due to boredom and lack of challenge.
Missi Colvin
GoldWater Republican for Obama
Part 1
Why I support Barack Obama:
As a self proclaimed Goldwater Republican, I have found that Barry Goldwater's prediction that in the next few decades we will no longer be Republicans but rather considered to be Liberals or Democrats. Being Republican used to mean conservative government, rather than conservative values pushed upon the people without consideration for their individual opinions. I don't need a government concerned with my personal values and morals, that was my Mother's job! Keep your laws off my body and out of my house, and let me decide what spiritual path I choose. These are my rights, not just as an American but as a human being.
Missi Colvin
Thank you Missi. You have nailed it for all thinking people who love the principles on which our nation was founded...religion-government separation, privacy, no preemptive wars, no torture, no spying on us by our government, access by all to our elected representatives, permitting freedom without fear mongering, etc.. Again, good job Missi.
Mr Goldwater,
I respect your right to uphold your Republican views, and possibly that you have a better understanding of what your father would have wanted than his granddaughter. However after reading your statement that "My father would never endorse a candidate or a party that wanted to grow government, raise taxes or in any way step on our freedoms" if seems that he would not support John McCain if he were to stay true to those beliefs. Our freedoms have been seriously damaged due to laws such as the Patriot Act, which really is license to spy on anyone, anywhere, at any time. And our governement is bigger than ever, although it benefits most Americans not at all; especially the military industrial complex.(Dwight D Eisenhower).
I also find it telling that you fear "a veto-proof Congress and allowing free control of the executive and legislative branches" at this moment. I suppose the last eight years of that exact situation were fine with you. Hypocritical, wouldn't you say.
As a 40-something voter I think the opinions of ANY Goldwaters are of more interest to those over 60, and those in the top 5% income bracket. I remember hearing of your father, I was a child and too young to know or care about his views. My children, who are in their teens and twenties have never heard of him. As middle class Americans the name Goldwater is pretty irrelevant to our lives. Barack Obama is not.
Thank you for responding.
I am a strong supporter of Obama, but I think you do know better than your niece whom your father would have supported.
Please continue your efforts to help the Republican party-it is sad about the religious far right gaining all this power-there is no compassion on any issue from those supporting this extreme view-but compassion can return.
Martha
Junior is worrind about the Democrats holding both houses and the executive, and he certainly should be, as should we all. The most frightening aspect of Bush's legacy is that -- if the country survives as a democracy at all through the next few years -- the Democrats are likely to hold all three branches for many years to come.
I'm a Liberal, but any party owning all of the power bodes poorly for our Democracy.
I don't buy that if the Republicans had done a great job running this country for the six years they controled all three branches of government I would be happy that they were in control. and vote them back into office. I don't worry about whose in charge I worry about results. If Obama should win and both houses become strongly Democratic then it is our responsibility as citizens to keep their feet to the fire and demand results that are in the best interests of our country. If they maintain control while lining the pockets of major donors,earmarkour country into further debt and pasing laws that benefit the few over the needs of the many and we the people do nothing but vote them back in to office in two years then we are to blame for the conditons we face. It's time for this country to grow up and pay attention to whats going on in our governments and stop blaming "they" for all our problems.
I started off as a Republican. (Lincoln, etc. you know!) I left the party when it became polluted with religion. (A blatent and obvious constitutional violation).
Screw the Church of Republican bigotry. Let it rot from within.
Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe that would work in the "perfect world" where Republicans control everything. Jr, you seem to have failed to notice that the extreme right wing of the Pub party has taken over and the moderates - if there are any left - are too da**ed scared of them to speak up. You didn't want to speak up as long as the wealthy were getting what they wanted out of the far right - tax breaks. Truly moderate Republicans have begun to notice there is no room for them under the Pub umbrella. But I really don't want them in the Democratic party because they too often become "Blue Dogs" that deter the progressive agenda.
"Together the Goldwaters, including CC, should work together to redefine the Republican Party and make it the model Barry Goldwater Sr. stood for." Barry Goldwater, Jr.
I live in Arizona and when I drive around, I see more Obama for President stickers on cars. I am happy CC is voting for the right person to be President. I can't understand how you could vote for somebody who was friends with Charles Keating and was involved in the Keating 5 scandal. America has changed and you need to face the new reality. CC is smart and she deserves to be recognized as she new representative for the Goldwater family. I applaud her.
I can't say whether Barry Goldwater would have supported Obama. I do have a suspicion as to why Barry Jr. cannot.
To paraphrase Thomas Kuhn on the topic of new ideas: Those who worked fruitfully in the old view are emotionally and habitually attached to it. They usually go to their graves with their faith unshaken. Even when confronted with overwhelming evidence, they stubbornly stick with the wrong but familiar.
Between CC and Barry Jr., there are two kinds of "no brainer" in effect. One involves a reality so clear that little thought is required to see it. The other is a stubborn refusal to use one's brain.
Goldwater writes: "CC does not help the Republican Party nor the cause by minimizing John McCain."
And this is precisely what is so WRONG with the GOP! They are more concerned with helping "the cause" or the "Republican Party" than they are concerned with helping THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Precisely, if they put Country First instead of Party First, they'd recognize that they need to examine their core beliefs, see that America has moved away from them as surely as they have moved away from the GOP that produced Goldwater.
Trickle down economics does not work. This has been proven as surely as communism has been disproved. While on paper, from a theoretical standpoint, they work, but both fail to take into account that a handful of greedy people at the upper level distort and abuse the entire system.
Mr Goldwater, you said "My father would never endorse a candidate or a party that wanted to grow government, raise taxes or in any way step on our freedoms". Nor would your father abandon the very veterans who have served bravely in an ill gotten war like Senator McCain has done. Your father would never make veterans wait for over 2 years just to get their first disability check. McCain has voted 29 times in the past 4 years not to increase funding for the VA He did not even show up to vote on the New GI Bill. Your father would never ever do that Sir! I know, I was in Vietnam. That is the only thing I admired about your father sir. And it is the only reason my father admired your father. It is time you rethink your priorities as CC has done. People do not want to hear about tax cuts. It is all rhetoric anyway. Every tax dollar the Feds cut will just have to be made up for by the states/counties/cities.
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