Free Republic

Frank Rich, writing in New York magazine, has taken issue with my pieces on Goldwater, Republicans, and civil rights, calling it part of “the most insidious and determined campaign to rewrite racial history on the right.” If you can dig through Mr. Rich’s characteristically limp and emotive prose, you will discover that his argument amounts to: “Nyah, nyah! Strom Thurmond!”

Clarence Manion, the retired dean of the Notre Dame School of Law, became one of the most thoughtful conservatives from the mid-1950s through the 1970s. The “Manion Forum” began broadcasting in 1954 and continued until his death in 1979. In 1952, Manion would head the “Democrats for Eisenhower” organization. President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him as the chairman of a commission to study how to return to states the power that the federal government had taken away under the Roosevelt and Truman administration. When Manion did not back away from his support of something the administration opposed, Eisenhower fired him....

The Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education is one of the great landmarks of American history. It is also a good example of the fact that the law is not about the law. Maybe one in 500 college students ever has read the decision, and probably very few Americans could tell you much about the legal questions involved in Brown, but the moral question at the heart of the case — whether an apartheid regime of “separate but [formally] equal” would be allowed to stand in these United States — is well understood. It was well...

The Buckley Rule has been much invoked in recent weeks, in this space and elsewhere, and on almost every occasion it has been both misquoted and misapplied. As one who was present at the formulation, I feel obliged to record the “originalist” intention. It was the winter of 1964 and the unresolved question at NR editorial meetings, week to week, was this: Whom should the magazine support for the Republican presidential nomination? To outsiders, the question would have seemed all but settled. Issue by issue, NR gave every appearance of being all in for Barry Goldwater. Heck, there were those...

NARRATOR: "Don't look now young man, but somebody has his hand in your pocket. It's the hand of big government. It's taking away about four months pay from what your daddy earns evey year — one dollar out of every three in his paycheck. And its taking the security out of your grandmother's Social Security." GOLDWATER: "You know, that's the great trouble with big, inflationary government. It takes more and more of your earnings. It slowly but surely destroys individual initiative and responsibility. The government must draw its strength from the people, and as it drains away this strength, it...

After edging out Rockefeller 51% to 49% in the winner-take-all race in California, Goldwater had a huge majority of delegates, enough to easily win the nomination at the Republican convention. George Romney set about denouncing Goldwater, and even raised a stink at the convention to have Goldwater′s delegates disqualified. Romney was accusing many of Goldwater′s delegates as being everything from racists, members of the Ku-Klux-Klan, the John Birch Society and even accused some of being Communists! Imagine that! Once Goldwater was named the presidential nominee, George Romney still worked to undermine his campaign, refusing to endorse or support him. So...

"I don't worry about the Constitution," said Rep. Phil Hare, Democrat of Illinois, at a town hall meeting where voters questioned his support of the legislation that became Obamacare. You can find the clip on youtube.com, where it has 462,084 hits. That was before the 2010 election, in which Hare, running for a third term in a district designed by Democrats to elect a Democrat, was defeated 53 to 43 percent by Bobby Schilling, proprietor of a pizza parlor in East Moline. A lot of politicians are worrying about the Constitution these days. Liberal commentators were shocked this past week...

September 3, 2008 Interview with TPMtv - Santorum says that the GOP has moved away from the Goldwater, "small government" ideas. The full interview can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3uqZSih_wYU

Newt Gingrich holds a campaign rally at Brandon City Hall, Brandon, Mississippi

One of America's Founding Fathers, John Adams, wanted to create "a government of laws, not of men". This statement is one of the most misunderstood in American history. The communist governments of Cuba, China, and North Korea, are nations with many laws in their books, but they are not what John Adams had in mind. America's founding fathers created a constitution that was deliberately designed to starve the federal government of revenue. This is why they refused to impose a federal income tax on the American people, and the federal government had to survive on revenues raised from import duties....

"I went to a Goldwater organizing session in 1964. I met with Ronald Reagan for the first time in 1974. I worked with Jack Kemp, and Art Laffer and others to develop supply side economics in the late '70s. I helped Governor Reagan become President Reagan. I helped pass the Reagan economic program and worked with the National Security Council on issues including the collapse of the Soviet Empire," Newt Gingrich said at tonight's debate.

Friday, 11 Nov, Goldwater will be featured on the celebrated C-Span history series “The Contenders.”

The Tampa Tribune posts a flier that the Mitt Romney campaign is distributing in Florida, attacking Rick Perry as "reckless and wrong on social security." The top of the flier has pictures of a smiling Romney and a surly-looking Perry, and reads: "Two candidates. Only one will protect what's important to you." Continue Reading "Rick Perry believes social security is a 'failure,'" the flier says, quoting the Texas governor's book. "Rick Perry believes Social Security is unconstitutional ... Rick Perry does not believe Social Security should exist ... How can we trust anyone who wants to kill Social Security?" Notably...

The media typically begins any Presidential campaign with comparisons to Harry Truman. The Reagan re-election in 1984 had the comparison. The Bush re-election in 1992 had the comparison. The Clinton re-election in 1996 had the comparison. Humorously, the off year election of 2002 used the Truman comparison too, as did 2004. The media does this not only because a lot of them are lazy and not only because a lot of them talk with each other at beltway soirees where they infect each other with their various often contrived narratives and talking points, but also because they really do want...

Is Bachmannia replacing Obamamania? Has Sarah Palin elected Michele Bachmann? Have liberals who spent the better part of the last three years scornfully pouring vitriol on Sarah Palin helped Minnesota Congresswoman Bachmann -- like Palin an attractive conservative working mother of five (don't forget the 23 foster kids) from the American working class -- to a place on the GOP ticket instead? In one of the more delicious ironies in the history of presidential politics? After all this time of insisting Palin was (pick one) "profoundly stupid" (MSNBC's Chris Matthews), "dumb as a brick" (Young Turk's Cenk Uygur, now with...

I used to worry that Sarah Palin would be the Barry Goldwater of 2012. My bad. Paul Ryan is the Barry Goldwater of 2012.The Goldwater effect continues on this morning after the NY-26 debacle. Henry Olsen of AEI, as smart a political numbers guy as can be found on the political right, crunches the numbers to compare the performance of the 2011 special election candidates with the district-wide performance of all other GOP and Democratic candidates in 2010. He finds: Republican congressional candidate Jane Corwin is running 18 points behind the worst-performing Republican of 2010Democrat Kathy Hochul is running even...

It's apparent that the recent media attacks on Sarah Palin have, for the first time, actually drawn blood. Palin's negatives have shot up substantially, rising 7 points from 49% to 56%. The proximate cause is held to be the fact that she defended herself against the charge of complicity in murder in the Tucson shootings, along with engaging in some unclear variety of anti-Semitism by using the term "blood libel." It's safe to say that no other current politician would ever be held to such standards. This slump is surely temporary -- no more permanent than Obama's miniscule "leap" in...

Barry Goldwater on the welfare state: "Dismantle it. If we take from someone the personal responsibilty for caring for his material needs, we take from him also the will and the opportunity to be free." (from The Conscience of a Conservative) The most dangerous thing about Chairman Obama's Big Mommy Regime is the entitlement mentality that comes with it. Just ask the people of Greece who are watching their country crash and burn, literally. When the money runs out, as is often the case in the Euro-socialist dystopias, cradle to grave entitlements have to be cut, which tends to make...

Brit Hume is hosting a documentary on the conservative movement airing on the Fox News Channel tonight at 9 p.m. EST.

"...the Constitution is: a system of restraints against the natural tendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism." Barry Goldwater, 1960 Conscience of a Conservative If you don't have a copy of Barry Goldwater's, Conscience of a Conservative, buy one. If you have one, pull it out and re-read it. Focus, in particular, on the chapter entitled "The Perils of Power." In that chapter, Goldwater recounts for the reader the intentions of the founders in constructing our Constitution and three-branch government: to limit power. He reminds us that our founding document is "an instrument, above all, for limiting...