A. Sullivan: “No one has destroyed Goldwater’s legacy as effectively as Bush has.”
Now Barry Goldwater was a swell guy. Believed in a lot of good things, and, yes, eventually brought about conservatives’ takeover of the Republican party. But conservatives must never let themselves forget that much of the Great Society only came about because of the amazing electoral victory he handed the Democrats. The 89th Congress started in 1965 with 68 Democratic senators and 295 Democratic representatives (7 more senators and 4 more representatives than they would have in the post-Watergate 94th Congress), and Johnson had the sort of political capital that comes with winning 61% of the popular vote.
Too often conservatives get lost in the haze of idol worship and forget this. Barry Goldwater in 1964 was an ideologically pure conservative. And he contributed more to the creation of the Great Society, and the social destruction it wrought in the 60s and 70s, than most. I wish Bush would destroy that part of Goldwater’s legacy.
Posted by Apollo in Conservatism