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Conservative pioneer became an outcast
Michael Murphy
The Arizona Republic
May. 31, 1998 12:00 PM
In 1996, Barry Goldwater sat in his Paradise Valley home with Bob Dole and joked about his strange new standing as a GOP outsider.
''We're the new liberals of the Republican Party,'' Goldwater told Dole, who was then facing criticisms from hard-line conservatives in the presidential campaign.
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It was difficult to picture, but by the time he reached his mid-80s, Barry Goldwater had become something of an outcast in the political movement that he pioneered.
Though he continued his support of a strong national defense, Goldwater aggravated so many conservatives on other issues that some in Arizona once suggested stripping his name from party headquarters.
He confounded them on many issues:
* Goldwater had won support of abortion opponents in his 1980 U.S. Senate re-election campaign, but in his final term, he voted consistently to uphold the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion. Later in life, he was honored by Planned Parenthood.
* In 1981, Goldwater assailed the founder of the Moral Majority, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Responding to Falwell's statement that all good Christians should be concerned about the Supreme Court nomination of Arizonan Sandra Day O'Connor, he said, ''I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.''
* In 1987, Goldwater, who had described then Gov. Evan Mecham as ''hardheaded,'' called on the Republican maverick to resign.
* In 1989, Goldwater said the Republican Party had been taken over by a ''bunch of kooks,'' a reference to forces supporting TV evangelist Pat Robertson and Mecham.
* In 1992, he endorsed Democrat Karan English for Congress over Republican Doug Wead.
* In June 1993, Goldwater declared that the military should lift its ban on gays in the military. He also railed against discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace.
Little more prickly
Many worried that Goldwater, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, had lost his bearings.
A few even whispered that Goldwater had become a loose cannon, or that his second wife, Susan, had led him politically astray.
But to those who worked with him and who counted the retired senator as a political mentor, Goldwater never changed.
He just became a little more prickly and a lot more outspoken on an issue he loved: freedom.
''I absolutely do not think that he changed in the sense of becoming more liberal, as some of the critics have said,'' said Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., whose father, Stephen, ran several of Goldwater's campaigns.
''I would challenge anybody who knew who Barry Goldwater was to establish anything that shows his basic philosophy ever really changed,'' Shadegg said.
Added Sam Steiger, who served with Goldwater in Congress, ''I think the image of Goldwater moving or the party leaving Goldwater . . . that's all crap. I've always believed that.''
That's because Goldwater always had a strong libertarian streak.
In a 1994 commentary published in The Arizona Republic, he spoke proudly of the GOP's traditional stance for ''individual rights and liberties.''
''The positive role of limited government has always been the defense of these fundamental principles,'' he said.
''The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please, as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process.''
In the same article, Goldwater warned that ''the radical right has nearly ruined our party.''
''Its members do not care about the Constitution and they are the one making all the noise,'' he said.
Basic tenets unchanged
Looking back, that was an odd statement coming from Goldwater, who was cast in the 1964 presidential contest by his enemies as a dangerous leader of the radical right.
Yet Goldwater's basic tenets - keeping government out of people's lives - never really changed. Those who knew him said that the party changed with leaders such as Falwell, who argued that government should step in to police some of the most private aspects of people's lives.
''The issue for Barry was freedom, and I think his view was that it's wrong for liberals to use the government to advance their view of the world, and it was also Barry's view that it is wrong for the Pat Robertsons of the world to use government to advance their view of the world,'' Shadegg said.
Once he left office and the constraints that go with it, Shadegg said, Goldwater became even more libertarian and ''even more of an advocate for freedom.''
Shadegg explains Goldwater's endorsement of Democrat Karan English by noting that English's GOP opponent was ''a flagrant carpetbagger who appeared to have no right to claim that office and was a questionable character.''
''Barry wouldn't stomach it,'' Shadegg said.
''Barry deeply loved this state. He was as much Mr. Arizona as Mr. Conservative.''
Privilege of age
Goldwater also enjoyed a privilege of old age: Saying anything you want, even if it meant angering conservatives so much that some wanted to erase his name from the GOP headquarters in Phoenix.
''Barry Goldwater would be amused by such a thing,'' said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., noting that the senator was not one ''to be worried about names on a building.''
''It's typical of those people,'' Kolbe said. ''If you're not with them 100 percent, you're not with them. Therefore you're persona non grata. But that never kept Barry Goldwater from speaking his mind.''
Kolbe, who began his political career as a page for Goldwater in the U.S. Senate, said, ''Both the party and the whole world around him changed . . . but I'm not sure he changed all that much.''
Goldwater may have put it best in 1992, when he revealed his contempt for a new conservative movement focused on fellow Republican Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
''I don't like being called the New Right; I'm an old, old son-of-a-bitch. I'm a conservative,'' he said. <!--*End Print Friendly-->
