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January 25, 2005

Goldwater Lives!

With Republicans sweatily gripping all the levers of government, it's worth taking a moment to see how the worm has turned. MoJo blog had a great post showing that Bush's speech wasn't so much penned by Michael Gerson, as lifted from an acceptance address 50 years ago:

On the Republican Party: "This party, with its every action, every word, every breath and every heartbeat has but a single resolve, and that is freedom -- freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature's God."

On other nations in the world: "This nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world."

Will that road be easy: "I know that our freedom was achieved through centuries, by unremitting efforts by brave and wise men. I know that the road to freedom is a long and challenging road."

What about those who say America is an Empire: "Our Republican cause is not to level out the world. Our Republican cause is to free our people and light the way for liberty throughout the world."

And the larger forces at work: "This Nation was founded upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom."

Why will the world follow: "We must make it clear that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and its rejections with all nations tempered, terrorism* and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is not -- or wants to be -- free."

In case you were wondering, those words didn't come from Michael Gerson's pen nor emerge from Bush's mouth. They were Barry Goldwater's. And Gerson, a speechwriter with an acute sense of history, surely knew that. But does he know what happened to the man who scribbled down the original? This comes from Page 37 of The Right Nation:

Goldwater's defeat turned conservatives into pariahs. Theodore H. White tells a remarkable story about Goldwater's chief speechwriter, Karl Hess. Chief Speechwriters of losing campaigns usually find a safe berth in the party machinery, but not so Hess. First, he applied for positions with conservative senators and congressmen -- the very politicians who had been cheering him on months before. Unwanted, he lowered his sights dramatically. Could he perhaps work the elevators in the Senate or the House? Still no luck. The apostle of the free market was reduced to the ranks of the unemployed. He enrolled in a night-school course in welding and eventually found a job working the night shift in a machine shop.

It wasn't that long ago that Gerson's equivalent was banished from politics forever. 50 years later, his words echoed in the inaugural speech of a two-term Republican president. And while his party crows and talks of a "permanent majority", disheartened Democrats should keep in mind how quickly -- and how totally -- the worm can turn.

* MoJo blog replaced Communism with terrorism to drive home the similarity.

January 25, 2005 in Republicans | Permalink

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» Right-wing Freedom Talk from The Bit Bucket
At his new blog, Ezra Klein argues that Bush's acceptance speech "wasn't so much penned by Michael Gerson, as lifted from an acceptance address 50 years ago"--by Barry Goldwater. (which, incidentally was in 1964, 40 years ago) Apparently, freedom-talk ... [Read More]

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Comments

That's an interesting take on Goldwater's defeat; the story I've heard from conservatives online, and from historians of the Reagan adminsitration, is that Goldwater's campaign energized a large group of grassroots footsoldiers, who were the people who brought Reagan to power a decade later - eg, that Goldwater's defeat paradoxically strengthened the conservative movement and set the stage for conservative ascendency within the Republican party. (The Republican party of Eisenhower was not conservative in any sense modern conservatives would recognize).

It's not clear to me in what sense this is an accurate description of what happened, and in what sense it is the byproduct of Reaganite hagiography. My curiosity is piqued; i'll have to add this book to my amazon list.

Posted by: aphrael | Jan 25, 2005 12:35:34 PM

I don't get your point. Are you saying that Hess's life was ruined? On the contrary, it sounds to me that Hess progressed from being a hack crafting empty platitudes for a right wing nut into an honorable profession where he earned an honest day's pay (assuming the the welder's union was strong back then).

Would that Gerson might do the same.

Posted by: tristero | Jan 25, 2005 2:21:22 PM

Check out Karl Hess: http://fare.tunes.org/books/Hess/dop.html

-
After the defeat of 1964, the extreme Right did not give up and decided it would be best to emulate the Democrats. They bided their time, regrouped, began a Long March through the Republican Party and eventually took over in 1980. This should be a lesson for today's Democratic Party. As Harry Truman said: Given the choice between a Republican and a Democrat who pretends to be a Republican, voters will choose the real thing every time.

Posted by: Chris | Jan 25, 2005 2:32:36 PM

Good post, but unless my math is wrong 1964 + 50 = 2014, isn't it still 2005?

Joe

Posted by: joe | Jan 25, 2005 2:51:34 PM

Barry Goldwater was pro-choice.

Posted by: Ms. Not Together | Jan 25, 2005 3:58:12 PM

All those who think that niggling complaints about word usage are boring skip to the next comment.

Those who are still here: "The worm has turned" doesn't mean "how things have changed." The "worm" in the saying is a snake ("worm" in early English meant any creeping thing). The original saying is, "tread on a worm and it will turn" - if you step on the tail of a snake, thinking it's just a lowly, weak thing, it will double back and bite you with its poisonous fangs. So "the worm has turned" means that some one or thing that you thoughtlessly abused has come back to bite you. (Obviously, if you tread on an earthworm, it won't turn, it will squish.)

Posted by: jr | Jan 25, 2005 4:19:30 PM

PS: If you've seen the Gadsden Flag - the American Revolutionary flag with the coiled rattlesnake and the legend, "Don't tread on me" - you've seen an illustration of the 'worm-turn' proverb.

Posted by: jr | Jan 25, 2005 4:23:53 PM

I'm just stunned that the current president is taking speech cues from Goldwater's head writer. Okay, I lied. I'm actually not stunned by that. But I am stunned that said speechwriter was unable to get even an elevator job in Washington after said speech. Just one of those things that makes my internal firebrand want to pull out her hair and scream, "why aren't more people talking about this!?!!?!"

Posted by: Kate | Jan 25, 2005 4:59:28 PM

"Goldwater's campaign energized a large group of grassroots footsoldiers, who were the people who brought Reagan to power a decade later"

Well, yes, this has entered the conventional wisdom, but it leaves out a critical juncture: Watergate. The moderate, internationalist, Keynesian wing of the party (which Nixon represented far more than the Christian right) was totally triumphant by 1972. Watergate screwed this up totally, and left the Republican party leadership adrift and crippled. This is what really gave them their chance after 1976. Goldwater's defeat was, by any measure, a catastrophe for conservatism, no matter what sugary coating they've applied to it since.

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