Good for Clinton for being a "Goldwater Girl"

I am not being snarky. Good for her for being a politically engaged kid. She was all of 16 at the time she supported him and had grown up in a Republican household. It's just absurd to knock her for this. At the time she was politically active, far fewer kids got involved in politics then a few year later. She wasn't even eligible to vote for another 5 years.

Anyone thinking this is a reason to be suspicious of her, or not vote for her, has completely jumped the shark of reason.

Put up another OP, why don't you?

what is your problem? do you ever stop whinging? Is it a congenital problem?

most 16 yr olds go with the parents. I did.

Hillary was just a teenager when she liked Goldwater, but then she went to college and became more politically active and aware and realized the Democrats were the better party.

from her Sophomore year till today.

I guess dealing with young GOP and their mentors up close is one of the best ways to get those with a conscience to become liberals! :-)

He would be far more in tune with Edwards and Obama, than with Guiliani, Thompson, or a couple of lunatic religious folks like Huckster and Romney.

He was pro-choice, anti-war on drugs, and much more of a liberal by today's standards, on social issues. What made him a conservative are values that are no longer exclusive to the GOP-a desire to keep government out of people's business.

then again, so would Nixon.

"pathetic".

or are you completely incapable of actually saying anything?

then went to college and became a Democrat.

I never remember changing what i believed...but the parties seemed to change what they stood for drastically. I am 34

...because I knew zilch about what he really was. All I saw was a personality. Didn't know he was sending environmental protections back to the Dark Ages, the mere knowledge of which would have turned me against him in a heartbeat. The mark of growing up and getting older, one hopes, is that we educate ourselves and begin to make our own decisions based on facts, instead of hearsay or what those around us think. Look at where Hillary is today; the change is a positive quality, not a negative.

Also, like it or not, during the fearful Cold War, Reagan provided a comfort for factor for a lot of folks. They didnt pay attention to the other stuff.

that, like some other folks said in the thread, Goldwater is/was not idealogically aligned with the current bush administration, nor what many of us think as the reagan republican. He was not socially very conservative (no flat earther was he), he was for balanced budgets and small, limited government, and a more isolationist foreign policy. I agree, in varying degrees, with most of the goals (socially am liberal).

So i think the term republican is an oversimplification. A goldwater republican, like a rockefeller republican, has a political legacy of reason and compromise, despite strong conviction. Bush? Ummm, no.

Finally, I would add that if you were a democrat in the south before the 1960's, you were most likely what I would classify as a dixiecrat -- what I believe to be today's socially conservative GOPer rank and file, with all the attendant qualities.

Honestly, I am not so sure I would have naturally classified myself as a dem back then given my sensitivity to race relations (I am a white, liberal apologist in a handsome package!). By the end of the 1960s, by which time many of the southern, male democratic voter block exited our party as punishment for the Civil Rights Act and various other crimes against white humanity, things were looking more like today.

So Hillary gets a pass here on me.

Also, let's note that there are many white southern men who care deeply about racial justice, one place I never doubt John Edwards (despite my overall prickly attitude towards him) and where Bill Clinton did aok.

used to be a Rethug...then yes, this is a pathetic post? (I'd call it
"push posting". LOL

However, if you posted this to educate fellow DUers so they could really understand the absurdity of others posting, "Warning! Clinton used to be a Rethug." Then I say, Congratulations! Job well done." So if the shoe fits wear it with pride. Only you and The Shadow Knows.