Barry Goldwater

I found this on Right Wing Nation:

This is the best campaign idea for 08 I've seen yet. Exhume Goldwater.









Definitely, everybody who identifies as a conservative needs to re-read this book:

I credit Goldwater and Reagan with helping me to see through the fallacies of the left but I doubt if anyone like him could win the GOP primaries nowadays. Those same Southern religious conservatives who voted for him in 64 because of his opposition to the Feds forcing states to accept integration (eventhough they were then Dixiecrats) would disapprove of him today (eventhough they now call themselves Republicans) because, like Giuliani, Goldwater was a maverick - pro-choice, not anti-gay, distrustful of the religious right. He would have cringed at the Marriage Amendment, Congress' interference in the Schiavo case, the Congressional Republicans' doubling of government bureaucracies in the past 12 years, their out of control spending and new entitlements such as the Medicare drug boondoggle.

From Wikipedia:

Barry Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–87) and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He is the American politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s.

Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought inside the Conservative Coalition to defeat the New Deal coalition. Goldwater lost the 1964 Presidential election in a landslide to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. The Johnson campaign and other critics painted him in 1964 as a radical reactionary, while supporters praised his crusades against the federal government, corrupt labor unions, and the welfare state. His defeat allowed American liberals to pass their Great Society programs. However the defeat of so many older Republicans in 1964 also cleared the way for a younger generation of American conservatives to mobilize, but they followed Ronald Reagan not Goldwater.

By the 1980s, the increasing influence of the Christian Right on the Republican Party so conflicted with Goldwater's libertarian views that he became a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

[...]

With the onset of World War II, Goldwater received a reserve commission in the United States Army Air Forces. He became a pilot assigned to the Ferry Command, a newly formed unit that delivered aircraft and supplies to war zones worldwide; he spent most of the war flying between the USA and India, via the Azores and North Africa or South America, Nigeria and Central Africa. He also flew "the hump" over the Himalayas to deliver supplies to the Republic of China. Remaining in the reserves after the war, he retired with a rank of Major General. By that time, he had flown 165 different types of aircraft. Following World War II, Goldwater was a major proponent of building the United States Air Force Academy, and later served on the Academy's Board of Visitors. The Visitor Center at the Academy is named in his honor.

[...]

Goldwater soon became most associated with labor-union reform and fighting Communism; he was an active supporter of the Conservative coalition in Congress. His work on labor issues led to Congress passing major anti-corruption reforms in 1957, and an all-out campaign by the AFL-CIO to defeat his 1958 reelection bid. He voted against the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, but himself was much more prudent than McCarthy and never actually charged any individual with being a Communist/Soviet agent.

[...]

Goldwater supported the Arizona NAACP and was involved in desegregating the Arizona National Guard. Nationally, he supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. However, he opposed the much more comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964; he argued that it unconstitutionally extended the federal government's commerce power to private citizens in its drive to "legislate morality" and restrict the rights of employers. Since conservative Southern Democrats were the main opponents to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and previous civil rights legislation, Goldwater's opposition to the 1964 Act, in which he was joined by only four other non-Southern Republican senators, strongly boosted Goldwater's standing among white Southerners.

In 1964, he fought and won a bitterly contested, multi-candidate race for the GOP's presidential nomination. His main challenger was New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, whom he defeated in the California primary. His nomination was challenged by liberal Republicans who thought Goldwater's hardline foreign policy stances would bring about a deadly confrontation with the Soviet Union. He would eventually lose to President Lyndon Johnson by one of the largest margins in the history of U.S. Presidential elections. Consequently, the Republican Party suffered a significant setback nationally, losing many seats in both houses of Congress. Goldwater carried only his home state and five (formerly Democratic) Southern states. Many Republicans at the time angrily turned against Goldwater, claiming that his defeat had significantly set back the party's chances of future national success.

[...]

Goldwater was an unwavering supporter of Wisconsin's Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy to the end (one of only 22 Senators who voted against McCarthy's censure). He was also friends with Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts; in fact, Goldwater anticipated that a contest for the presidency between John F. Kennedy and Goldwater himself would have been an enjoyable experience, with lively debates between them, one of which was to be held on board a plane in flight. Goldwater disliked Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas (who he said "used every dirty trick in the bag"), and Richard M. Nixon of California, whom he later called "the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life".

[...]

By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater's libertarian views on personal issues were revealed, which he believed were an integral part of true conservativism. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention. In fact, his own daughter Joanne chose to have an abortion before her first marriage at the age of 20, and he supported her decision. He was also not against homosexuals in the military. As a passionate defender of personal liberty, he saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties. In his 1980 Senate reelection campaign, Goldwater won support from religious conservatives but in his final term voted consistently to uphold legalized abortion.

And here are a few things he said about the growing influence of the religious right in the GOP:

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

Goldwater's grandfather was a Jew but his father had converted to Christianity. I agree with him 100% on this particular issue and I have a hunch that so do a lot of ordinary non-ideological non-partisan middle-class center-right Americans. We don't like being dictated to by anyone whether they're rightwing moralists or leftwing secularists. There's a delicate balance to be kept in the affairs of state and religious beliefs (whether it's Christianity or Marxism - yes, that is a equally unscientific religious belief system albeit atheistic) need to be kept out of politics.