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A Time for Choosing by Ronald Reagan October 27, 1964 =================================== To a significant degree, Ronald Reagan's election to the presidency stems from this speech, given on national television on behalf of, and sponsored by, Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. The speech remains amazingly fresh as a statement of modern American conservative philosophy four decades after it was delivered. =================================== Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own...

The parking lot of Tucson Electric Park filled quickly Saturday morning with Tucsonans eager to take part in The Tucson Tea Party. Organizers said they expected up to 10,000 people to descend on Tucson Electric Park for the rally to demand less government. Long lines of cars and a healthy crown of tailgaters Saturday morning made it clear organizers could get as large a turnout as they had predicted. “We’re normal, non-racist everyday Tucsonans who are very concerned about the direction our government is going, ” said Chris Bubany, a small business owner who was serving chile relleno and peanut...

A new generation of conservative activists has come forth, and many of the newcomers have never experienced the kind of nastiness to which liberals are inclined, falsely labeling them as racists, even Nazis. Many of the new activists worry that liberals' smears will be effective. But the old-timers among conservative activists have a message for the newcomers: Don't worry. We've heard these smears throughout our political lives. Even in the old days, the smears rarely worked. It is, to paraphrase Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls," the oldest established permanent floating crap game in American politics.

THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN by Wayne Allyn Root Review by Dr. John Hospers, © September 2009 My book, LIBERTARIANISM was first published in 1971. Its subtitle, ‘A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow’ has at long last come true today. I hope it’s not too late. The pragmatic reality is in Wayne Allyn Root’s brilliant new volume: THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERTARIAN - a title I might add, that was obviously carefully considered and borrowed in the “classic liberal” sense –that is, it was returned with dividends of thought and deserved tribute to The Conscience of a Conservative author, politician –...

Rand Paul's Birthday Present to Dad Ron Paul By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers What do you give a congressman for his birthday? If you're Senate candidate Rand Paul and you're choosing presents for dad, Rep. Ron Paul, whose birthday was yesterday, you go for gifts that scream politics. "I gave him an original copy of Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative that was given to me by the publisher," Rand Paul tells Whispers, adding that it was published in Kentucky, where he's running for U.S. Senate. He also gave his pop, who's a big fan of economics, some early 20th-century...

Among the questions asked by the Goldwater survey were such puzzlers as “What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?” and “Who was the first president of the United States?” The full report will be released shortly, but here are ten of the questions asked, along with the percentage of students who answered them correctly. To pass, the students had only to correctly answer six of the ten questions, pulled at random from a pool of questions from the U.S. citizenship exam. Only 3.5% of the students, all from government schools, passed the test. That’s about 40 out of...

Here's Barry Goldwater, Jr. on Glenn Beck's show discussing the future of the GOP: "I think Sarah Palin is a potential... she is great. She's attractive, she's smart, she's got the right message, and she doesn't take any crap from anybody."

McCain Strategist Warns GOP Risks Becoming 'Religious Party' Steve Schmidt urges Republicans to begin voicing more support for civil unions and gay rights. FOXNews.com Friday, April 17, 2009 John McCain's top adviser from the presidential campaign urged fellow Republicans on Friday to warm up to gay rights and warned that the GOP risks becoming the "religious party" with its opposition to same-sex marriage. Steve Schmidt, in his first political appearance since the election, spoke at the Washington, D.C., convention for the Log Cabin Republicans -- a grassroots group for gay and lesbian Republicans. He urged Republicans, in the near-term, to...

I’m afraid the man who wrote “Dead Right” is dead wrong. While Goldwater and Reagan were different people who faced very different political circumstances, the latter succeeded due to the path that the former set in motion. In other words, Goldwater did make Reagan possible.

It's CPAC weekend - the grand rallying of the conservative clan here in Washington. It's a season where conservatives from across the country meet to compare notes, share stories, and seek political consensus. The consensus forming this year however is an ominously dangerous one - ominously dangerous to conservatives themselves that is. Conservatives live in thrall to a historical myth, and this myth may soon cost us dearly. The myth is the myth of the Goldwater triumph of 1964. It goes approximately as follows: In 1964, after years of watered down politics, Republicans turned to a true conservative, Arizona Senator...

...The Goldwater myth shuts down all attempts to reform and renew our conservative message for modern times. And it offers a handy justification for nominating a 2012 presidential candidate who might otherwise seem disastrously unelectable...

It is time for the states of this country to reclaim their rightful role in solving the problems of the people for which they stand. As Barry Goldwater noted in 1960 in Conscience of a Conservative: “Nothing could so far advance the cause of freedom as for state officials throughout the land to assert their rightful claims to lost state power; and for the federal government to withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserved to the states.” Today, as we watch the federal government leviathan engage in social engineering and economic wealth redistribution on a massive...

Sounds like "El Cid" wants to replace nonsense with commonsense. "I am angrier than a women’s libber without a bra to burn over this whole diversity nonsense. I am especially peeved about being forced to attend sexual diversity harassment training. It seems like everyone in America has been brainwashed into thinking that diversity is the greatest thing since sliced bread."

(CNN) -- The questions now being asked are: Where to go from here and who's to blame for the downfall of the Republican Party? Too bad the concern for the future of the Republican Party had not been seriously addressed in the year 2000 when the Republicans gained control of the House, Senate, and the Presidency. Now, in light of the election, many are asking: What is the future of the Republican Party? But that is the wrong question. The proper question should be: Where is our country heading? There's no doubt that a large majority of Americans believe we're...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs

"I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them. Or if not to apologize directly, to qualify their commitment in a way that amounts to breast beating." It's time to get back to basics, this is where it begins. Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative. You can get it bargain priced from Barnes and Noble right now for $8.99. Make the investment. We need to go back to square one.

How Goldwater Won From special coverage in Arizona, HUMAN EVENTS is able to reconstruct the modus operandi of the Goldwater campaign. The young Senator's victory over his well-financed and backed opponent Governor Ernest McFarland, emerges as the outstanding exploit of the Republicans in an otherwise dreary election result. Goldwater ran on a thoroughly conservative platform and record, and in no way dodged issues or resorted to me-tooism or conpromises. He demonstrated that he was no coattail rider when he did not, as did others, cry to Ike [President Dwight D. Eisenhower] for help. In a state with a preponderant...

"Let's grow up, conservatives. If we want to take this party back — and I think we can — let's get to work," the Arizona senator told the 1960 Republican convention,..." BARRY GOLDWATER, 1960 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, once worked for a man who was an identified member of the Communist Party USA, a registered agent of the Soviet Union and a paid disseminator of Soviet black propaganda. This man went on to become a key Chicago political fixer who helped elect communist linked politicians including the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington and former US Senator Carol Moseley Braun. This man knew Barack Obama and was a key member of an organisation which endorsed Barack Obama in his 2004 US Senate race. Barack and Michelle Obama were active members of this...

There is a good article at of all places The Huffington Post where Barry Goldwater, Jr. says his dad would be supporting John McCain. I know all about the Huffington Post, but why can't one link to a good article like this one?

Fellow Freepers, I know all hope is not lost. And I do believe our numbers are stronger than the media says. Though I do wonder if we are facing another 1964. In the sense that we have a Republican Arizona senator facing the onslaught of a liberal Democrat, liberal media and liberal Congress. I do NOT believe John McCain represents conservatism the way Barry Goldwater represented our ideas. But I think we may be in for a "long, hard slog", as Rumsfeld once put it in another context. The socialists/big tax and spenders may seize our government in January. And...

What would Reagan say about the 2008 election ?

The Road to Serfdom revisitedBy McCaniac If you've never seen the cartoon version of "The Road to Serfdom", click here to read it. It's a classic from 1950 and well worth revisiting as we stand on the edge of economic catastrophe. The choice between reform and socialism has never been clearer, just as it was in 1952. A friend of mine today and I were talking about economists. I pointed her to this survey of economists compiled by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. You will note that the economists are 48% Democrats versus 17% Republicans. Not surprisingly, most economists...

In a prior post, I asked readers to guess the one Catholic ever named to a national Republican ticket. The answer was William Miller, running mate to the great Barry Goldwater in the 1964 race.   Here's another political trivia question with a religious link. Name the contender in this year's race who is technically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.ANSWER: According to the website of the Global Catholic Network the answer seems to be Palin. The site states that "once a person willingly repudiates Christ, embraces a heresy, knowing it to be contrary to divine and Catholic faith, or refuses submission...

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Republican Presidential Nomination 1964 Republican National Convention Cow Palace, San Francisco From this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. Together we will win. I accept your nomination with a deep sense of humility. I accept, too, the responsibility that goes with it, and I seek your continued help and your continued guidance. My fellow Republicans, our cause is too great for any man to feel worthy of it. Our task would be too great for any man, did he not have with him the heart and...

Those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberty in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen, must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will. And this nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom. Now, those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let...

Address on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater Rendezvous with Destiny October 27, 1964 This speech is a verbatim transcript of "The Speech" given as a portion of a pre-recorded, nationwide televised program sponsored by Goldwater-Miller on behalf of Barry Goldwater, Republican candidate for the presidency whom Ronald Reagan actively supported. 4,626 words Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own ideas regarding the choice that we face...

The near simultaneous publication of historian Sean Wilentz book “Age of Reagan” and the publication of activist / reporter Rick Pearlstein’s “Nixonland”, previously praised on these pages, has caused a dust-up over who most personified and ultimately transformed the modern conservative age which played out on the New Republic website. Although I am neither historian nor an unbiased reporter, I was a participant in the Nixon realignment which ultimately begat the Reagan revolution. ..... The change in Richard Nixon comes with Goldwater’s sweeping nomination and what Nixon then understands can be salvaged, even nurtured,in the ashes of Barry’s defeat. “You...

Many conservatives realistic enough to know there will never be "another Reagan" nevertheless wish at least for another Barry Goldwater. They don't realize that we already have one. His name is John McCain. {snip} AS WITH GOLDWATER, so with McCain. Irascible, iconoclastic, sometimes a bit profane, always his own man and nobody else's, McCain is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon -- but still with much to offer his country. We all know, of course, why so many of us are so often so angry with McCain -- his sometimes bizarre heresies from conservatism, his insulting language and hair-trigger temper toward conservatives who...

The Married Man Cometh: The Doctrine of American Exceptionalism By Michael Donnella This week, I experienced the second best moment in my life, after the first birth of my son. On Friday May 23, the lovely Caitlin Whitehead became the even lovelier Caitlin Donnella, and two souls became one. We have become so much closer in this first week of marriage, and the feeling of love and beauty is irreplaceable. I enjoy my youthful idealism right now more than anything in my life. My wife gives me the extra strength that I already have to continue to push and to...

Orange Countification: Part 1 Excerpt from One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game That Changed a NationBy Steven Travers Bill, I've just handed the South to the Republicans for fifty years. – President Lyndon Johnson talking with aide Bill Moyers right after the Voting Rights Act In 1964, the Democratic Party dominated U.S. politics. Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater with 64 percent of the vote. He had enormous filibuster-proof majorities in the House and Senate. The imprimatur of John Kennedy’s legacy hung solidly on LBJ. A majority of America’s governors and state legislatures were Democrat. The Civil...

My grandfather was a college football star who even played for the NFL champs back in 1928, so I was looking forward to seeing George Clooney’s new 1920s football movie, Leatherheads, this weekend. That’s before I found out how Clooney, like many lefties in Hollywood and the news media, had treated the late Charlton Heston. Clooney’s offense took place a few years back. According to Life Site News, “For his conservative stands, however, Heston was attacked and reviled by his Hollywood colleagues. In 2003 actor and leftist political activist George Clooney joked about Heston’s illness [Alzheimer’s disease], and, after Heston...

In what may well be one of the last published articles he wrote, William F. Buckley Jr. recalls the problems that arose when the John Birchers got too close to Barry Goldwater’s Presidential Campaign: The society had been founded in 1958 by an earnest and capable entrepreneur named Robert Welch, a candy man, who brought together little clusters of American conservatives, most of them businessmen. He demanded two undistracted days in exchange for his willingness to give his seminar on the Communist menace to the United States, which he believed was more thoroughgoing and far-reaching than anyone else in America...

RICHARDSON, Texas (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Thursday the question of whether he can run for president, despite being born in the Panama Canal Zone, was put to rest 44 years ago in Barry Goldwater's run for the White House.McCain added that he doesn't know why his campaign sought legal analysis of whether his birth outside the continental United States might disqualify him from the presidency.The Constitution says only a "natural-born citizen" may serve as president.McCain's campaign asked former Solicitor General Ted Olson for a legal interpretation of the issue.McCain himself insists the issue was put to...

In the early months of l962, there was restiveness in certain political quarters of the Right. The concern was primarily the growing strength of the Soviet Union, and the reiteration by its leaders of their designs on the free world. Some of the actors keenly concerned felt that Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona was a natural leader in the days ahead. But it seemed inconceivable that an anti-establishment gadfly like Goldwater could be nominated as the spokesman-head of a political party. And it was embarrassing that the only political organization in town that dared suggest this radical proposal—the GOP’s nominating...

Am I the only who has been screaming “What the hell is wrong with people… John McCain????  Seriously John McCain??? No, I know I’m not!  So then I think and ask myself over and over, until my head hurts, “what would make people vote for someone like John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or Barrack Obama?”. The answer…  People have no ideology, nor do they care to beleive in anything other than themselves.  People think everything is owed to them.  People do not care about what a person will do once in office, they're acting like this election is American Idol,...

I am working on a book for publication next year (in April 2008, if all goes well) about the late Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who served for thirty years in the United States Senate and was the 1964 Republican Party presidential nominee. His son Barry Goldwater Jr., who is my longtime friend, and I discovered a lot of unpublished first-person material in the Senator's papers at the Arizona Historical Foundation as the archivists were completing the processing of his collection. Because we found this material remarkably revealing about the man and his thinking, we hope others might find it...

The son of the legendary Conservative Republican presidential candidate and Arizona senator, Barry Goldwater, produced a YouTube video endorsement of Ron Paul. Ron Paul responded “I am honored to have the endorsement of my friend, Barry Goldwater, Jr.,” said Dr. Paul. “Barry and his family have been giants in the fight to protect American values, and his support means the world to me.” In the video Barry Goldwater Jr. who served 6 terms in Congress with Ron Paul in highlights Paul’s honesty and integrity. Goldwater also said, “Ron Paul believes in a strong national defense but not being the policeman...

Barry M. Goldwater, Jr. endorsed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul for president. “America is at a crossroads,” said Mr. Goldwater. “We have begun to stray from our traditions and must get back to what has made us the greatest nation on earth or we will lose much of the freedom we hold dear. Ron Paul stands above all of the other candidates in his commitment to liberty and to America.” “Leading America is difficult, and I know Ron Paul is the man for the job,” he added.

In September, I posted another vanity (linked below) in which I observed that the historical trends in this election favored Fred Thompson. Since then, his RCP average has dropped from about 22% to 16-17%. In the more volatile Rasmussen daily tracking poll, he has also dropped to 16%, about a 10 point drop from his post announcement high. In light of the above poll numbers, is it time for me to issue a mea culpa? No. This is not at all inconsistent with the hypothesis of my previous post. Neither of the successful insurgent candidates in modern times, Reagan or...

An analysis of every Republican Presidential Primary in the last 50 years shows that on only 3 occasions was there no incumbent President or Vice President, former President or Vice President, former nominee for President or Vice President, or son of a former President running for President. In 1960 (Nixon), 1968(Nixon), 1972(Nixon), 1976(Ford),1984 (Reagan), 1988(Bush 41), 1992(Bush 41), 1996 (Dole), 2000 & 2004(Bush 43), there was a clear "ex officio" establishment candidate who had either: a) been President; b) been Vice President; c) been the nominee earlier for President or Vice President; or d) was the son of a former...

Before reading A Glorious Disaster my knowledge of the 1964 presidential election was shallow. I knew Lyndon Johnson defeated Goldwater in a landslide, but I never really knew anything about the nuts and bolts of the campaign. The 1964 election is an odd one. Johnson had just become president after the Kennedy assassination (killed by a Marxist, go figure). As senator Johnson served as a conservative southern Democrat. He voted against every Civil Rights bill while he was in Congress. Johnson only shifted his opinion later because of the popularity of the measure. Johnson's ambitions were much stronger than any...

Is 2008 The New 1964? [John Derbyshire] There's a Pro-Ron-Paul meme going around, to the effect that 2008 is the new 1964; i.e. that on the premise—debatable in itself, of course—that the GOP has no chance of winning the presidency next year, conservatives should run a Goldwater-style insurgency to remind the party we're here & set up some influence for 2012. Bruce Bartlett floated the meme here. I got a thought-provoking e-mail along similar lines (one of dozens like it I've had on that Paul column) from Ben Novak, who lists himself as "founder of the Americans in Europe for...

At the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Barry Goldwater famously told conservatives to "grow up." It's time we hear that message again. As in 1960, the conservative movement seems grumbling, disaffected, even downright angry -- and, most importantly, it sometimes seems more interested in complaining and moaning than in uniting, constructively, to achieve political success. What's worse is that we seem to be fighting among ourselves. Every chance we get, we take shots at other conservatives. Nobody, it seems, is good enough. We moan that nobody is another Reagan. Nobody is another Churchill. Nobody is another Washington.

Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater [DVD] Zeitgeist Video // Unrated // $29.99 // July 31, 2007 (excerpts) Zeitgeist Films has released Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, a documentary on the legendary Republican Senator from Arizona. Co-produced by Barry Goldwater's granddaughter, CC Goldwater, Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater attempts the rather ridiculous transformation of the unsuccessful 1964 presidential candidate and author of The Conscience of a Conservative into a rebellious liberal, while hinting that his personal life may have been troubled. Perhaps significantly, no screenwriting credit is given, but one must assume that despite the film's listing of Julie Anderson as...

Barry Goldwater's 1964 Acceptance Speech Republican Presidential Nomination, 1964 Republican National Convention, Cow Palace, Daly City, Calif., July 16, 1964 From this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to the ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. Together we will win. I accept your nomination with a deep sense of humility. I accept, too, the responsibility that goes with it, and I seek your continued help and your continued guidance. My fellow Republicans, our cause is too great for any man to feel worthy of it. Our task would be too great for any...

Been There Done That by: Mary Kapp, July 09, 2007 Young conservatives watching the poll ratings of the only president they have ever voted for implode got some words of comfort, sort of, from a veteran conservative journalist last month at the Heritage Foundation. After conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s landslide defeat in 1964, the movement that nominated him was “apparently dead,” M. Stanton Evans remembers. “We didn’t even have grief counselors at that time,” Evans wryly recounts. “The malls weren’t covered.” “It could rain.” Back then, Evans was the editorial page editor of The Indianapolis News. “There were...

On July 8, in the year of our Lord 2006, I will celebrate my 39th birthday – for the 41st time. I wrote about this last year when I turned 79, and earlier, when I reached 78, and what I recounted then is still relevant and worth updating. I don't expect my birthday to evoke widespread national interest since most people have a lot more important things on their minds than my advancement into my 81st year. (Yeah, that's right – I'll be 80 years old, having completed that many years in this vale of tears, but from 7-8-06 onward...

The following speech was given by President Reagan when he nominated Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican Convention in Cow Palace. "I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this. It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's...