Right's Wrong Turn: Once in power, U.S. conservatives failed...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-edwards9may09,1,4682174.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions


Right's Wrong Turn
Once in power, U.S. conservatives failed to place freedom first


By Mickey Edwards, Mickey Edwards is a former member of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. He is also a former national chairman of the American Conservative Union and was a founding trustee of it

PRINCETON, N.J. — Forty years ago this November, Lyndon B. Johnson trounced Barry Goldwater in the Arizona senator's bid for the presidency. But far from conceding defeat, Goldwater's supporters saw the election as a mandate to build a reinvigorated national conservative movement aimed at changing America's course.

How well that mission succeeded is a matter of considerable debate within the conservative political community today.

There is no question that the machinery put in place during Goldwater's campaign endured, and that over time conservatives began to win elections. Ronald Reagan, who rose to national political prominence promoting Goldwater on network television, was helped into office by a later generation of that machine, and his presidency kicked off a quarter-century in which Republicans won four of six presidential elections.

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reminds us of times of yore when conservatives actually made attempts at logic and consistency.

the conservatives had lost the republican party to the fascists.

They've lost their party to the Fundie forces of Pat Robertson, and also the neocons.

I actually think Goldwater was quite an honerable guy near the end of his life.

"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."

-BG