Nearly 50 years after the GOP nominated Barry Goldwater for president, Ed Kilgore considers its shifting legacy:
It’s very interesting to note how memories of the Goldwater candidacy—especially among conservatives—have changed over the years. For some time it was a cautionary tale of what happens to a major political party when it goes on an ideological bender—much like the 1972 McGovern campaign is remembered in certain circles. By 1976 and 1980, with Ronald Reagan’s near-miss and then successful presidential campaigns, Barry’s crusade was retrospectively was viewed on the Right as ahead of its time… [E]ventually, as the rise of the conservative movement became recognized as one of the most important U.S. political phenomena of the second half of the twentieth century, the Goldwater campaign, despite its ostensible futility, was widely hailed as one of the three or four most important landmarks.
And it was. But, in my view, it was the coalition between these libertarian forces and the post-segregation South that, by immortalizing Goldwater and canonizing Reagan, that made extremism a virtue. Goldwater’s extremism was never put to the test in office, but he personally became, over the years, more Western than Southern. Reagan’s radicalism was relative to the challenges of his times – and he was far more pragmatic than today’s GOP would allow any leader to be. But both men in their peak periods represented a symbolic victory for the right against the center-right. There was only one significant push-back: George H. W. Bush. His political demise made moderation a dirty word – or, worse, an electorally negative one among the party faithful.
To respond to Goldwater: moderation in the pursuit of justice is indeed a virtue. And extremism of any sort may occasionally be a necessary corrective to an equal extremism, but if allowed to become a rallying cry, will eventually undercut any party’s ability to govern a country.
When you remove moderation from a conservative movement, and when you ally it with a region and a mindset Republicanism once went to war with, you end up with today’s ever-further ratcheting to the right. Until a centrist Republican wins office again, I fear the ratchet will keep moving further and further into la-la land.
The Dish 