Departments

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Barry Goldwater

  • SOURCE: The Bulwark
    9/30/2021

    My Father Harry Jaffa and the Birth of Modern Conservatism

    by Philip Jaffa

    Political scientist Harry Jaffa succeeded in cajoling the disparate elements of the right into a coalition dedicated to the pared-down goals of defeating Soviet communism and domestic socialism; after claiming victory in those battles, the coaltion has faltered. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    2/4/2021

    How the GOP Surrendered to Extremism

    by Ronald Brownstein

    Historian Matthew Dallek says that the prominence of conspiracy theorists and the far right in the Republican Party's base means that there will be no move to push extremists out like there was after Barry Goldwater's 1964 candidacy. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    6/29/2020

    The Western Origins of the “Southern Strategy”

    by Bruce Bartlett

    The growing importance of racially conservative white Republicans in the western states after World War II helped present southern whites with a viable alternative to the Democratic Party. 

  • SOURCE: NYT
    7-29-13

    William Scranton, Former Pennsylvania Governor, Dies at 96

    William W. Scranton, the moderate Republican governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967, who lost a run for his party’s presidential nomination in 1964 and later served as the United States representative to the United Nations, died on Sunday in Montecito, Calif. He was 96.The cause was a cerebral hemorrhage, Micheal DeVanney, a family spokesman, said.A descendant of Mayflower colonists and the founders of Scranton, Pa., heir to a fortune in railroads and utilities, the soft-spoken Mr. Scranton was heralded as a “Kennedy Republican” in the early 1960s. His amiable patrician style, and his independence as a fiscal conservative who supported civil rights and other liberal programs, proved popular with voters. He seemed poised for a national political future....

  • Where Have All the Real Conservatives Gone?

    by Scot Faulkner and Jonathan Riehl

    Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley in 1954. Credit: Wiki Commons/UCLA Library/LA Daily News.Recent Republican and conservative convocations have displayed one common thing. Those who pass for thinkers and leaders of these intertwined movements think they can keep doing the same things but achieve better results. With the notable except of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, most Republicans, after sifting through the debris of November 6, think they need new spokespeople and better packaging.The only thing standing between Republicans and the great Reagan landslides of 1980 and 1984 is them. This is a sad commentary on once noble movements. Republican and conservative “leaders” think twenty-first-century Americans are waiting to embrace tenth-century stands on social issues and science, and blustery vague pronouncements on government spending. Does any rational person think today’s Republicans and conservatives bear the slightest resemblance to those who rallied around Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan? Those two icons would not have finished in the top ten in the 2012 Iowa caucus or South Carolina primary.