Tuesday, June 9, 1998

Goldwater was definitely his own man

By Jospeph Spear

Thirty-three years and six months ago, a young lieutenant at Fort Dix, N.J., took up a pen, checked the box on an absentee ballot next to the name Barry Goldwater and became a part of history.

I was one of only 27,176,799 Americans who thought the Republican candidate deserved to be president. He lost in a landslide, winning the electoral votes of only six states.

It was the first presidential election in which I was eligible to vote, and Barry Goldwater was the first national politician I ever voted for. I still regard it as the most satisfying ballot I ever cast, and I would do it again today.

Looking back, I'm not sure why I was so enthusiastic about Goldwater, who passed away on May 29 at age 89. I paid scant attention to politics at the time and cared not a whit about Democrat this or Republican that. During my senior year at college, I had read Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater's mostly ghostwritten book about the principles that guided him, and had discovered that I agreed with much of what he said.

I had also watched the GOP convention in San Francisco in the summer of '64 and distinctly remember his "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" speech, and the pro-Goldwater stemwinder that launched Ronald Reagan's political career.

But I had also heard the vicious disparagements that Lyndon Johnson and his fellow Democrats, and even some moderate Republicans, heaped on Goldwater during that election campaign. He was a fascist, they said, a racist, a warmonger, a nuclear-happy psycho. "In your heart, you know he's right," his ads said. "In your guts, you know he's nuts," the Democrats responded.

I think my affection for Goldwater was instinctive. He was a curmudgeon, and I liked that. He was crusty, outspoken, pigheaded, irascible. He said what he thought and he didn't give a hoot whether anyone agreed. It simply did not occur to him that he should tailor his message, as they now say, to win votes. And at bottom, he stood for freedom. Freedom of nation and freedom of the individual. He was, in short, talking Joe's language.

So Joe voted for Barry, despite the torments of friends and verbal digs from the lovely young woman who would become my wife.

Goldwater came back to serve another 18 years as the senator from Arizona, and I eventually got into a trade requiring that I pay acute attention to politics. Through the years, he said and did things with which I disagreed, but not once did I lose my respect for him. Indeed, I gradually began to appreciate the fact that he was anything but a doctrinaire conservative. He was mainly a libertarian who believed that government should stay out of people's lives, which explains why he supported abortion and gay rights. Barry Goldwater was his own man.

In his four-decade career, Goldwater said many things that endeared him to me. Herewith a few of my favorites:

-- "I've got no use at all for the religious right. Anybody who tries to make politics out of God ought to go to hell."

-- The conservative movement is successful despite the "crackpots and nuts" on the religious right. "I know them all. I've said Jerry Falwell should be kicked in the ass, and I meant it. He has a big one. You can't miss it."

-- Richard "Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world."

-- "I believe Reagan did know of the diversion of Iranian funds to the Contras. He had to know. The White House explanation makes him out to be either a liar or incompetent."

-- "I don't like what the Republicans are trying to do with Clinton's background. I wish they'd get off his back on this so-called Whitewater. They're not going to prove anything."

-- "The best thing Clinton could do is to shut up. He has no discipline."

I revered Barry Goldwater, and I pray he rests in peace.

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