"An editorial in the August 1960 edition of National Review described the conservative youth activists who agitated to get Barry Goldwater on the ballot with presidential nominee Richard Nixon:
Youth was everywhere at the Republican convention. Youth managed the various candidates’ booths. Youth waved the posters. Youth held the convention parade, and it was youth, primarily, that staged the Presidential demonstration Wednesday night … Lots of the young people had no ideological interest, they had come … well, because their family was Republican … But those who were serious, the ones who will be working hardest to guide the Republican Party in the future, were conservatives: and most of them Goldwater fans. They passed out 15,000 Goldwater buttons, handed out literature, rallied inside and outside the amphitheater. They greeted Richard Nixon at the airport with Goldwater signs, and did the same thing for President Eisenhower the next day.
The editorial then noted: “They drove one Nixon aide into muttering in exasperation ‘Those damn Goldwater people are everywhere.’”
Youth might not show up in droves at the ballot box, but their activism and enthusiasm has long been a driving force behind the direction of both major parties. This has been particularly true of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
The youth activists who so passionately championed Goldwater in 1960 and 1964 were at the forefront of a conservative revolution that would eventually take over the GOP and deliver Ronald Reagan the White House. The old Republican guard, which preferred Nelson Rockefeller, would push back in ’60 and ’64, and the establishment fought hard against conservatives again in 1976 when Reagan challenged President Ford. But by 1980, the old Republican guard was simply no match for the long-building Reagan Revolution, something everyone concedes started with Goldwater.
And it all began with youth."
The Barry Goldwater conservative movement of the mid 1960s and even late 1960s launched Ron Reagan into office as President of the United States in 1980. But actually Congressional Republicans didn’t get the majority back in the House, or Senate in the mid and late 1960s, but made them a strong minority in both chambers. As well as Richard Nixon elected and reelected President of the United States in 1968 and 72, placed Ron Reagan in strong place to be the GOP frontrunner for President.
After losing in 1976, Ron Reagan became the Republican frontrunner in 1980. The way Gerry Ford governed as President of the United States in the mid 1970s, fiscally conservative, as well as respecting personal freedom and civil liberties, all of these things started with Barry Goldwater when he ran for President in 1964. And took sixteen years for it all to come together with a Republican president in 1980, a Republican Senate for the first time, since 1952 and a large Republican minority in the House of Representatives in 1980 as well. Where House Republicans led by Minority Leader Bob Michael, could work in coalition with right-wing Southern Democrats in the House, to pass and block legislation.
What happened with the Barry Goldwater conservative movement of the mid 1960s and what it finally led up to and what’s going on with the Ron Paul libertarian movement of today in the Republican Party, both have one thing in common: neither one was big enough to be a governing coalition in the United States, or even a leading coalition in the Republican Party, where they hold a lot of leadership positions. Back in the mid 1960s, America was still in the LBJ Great Society Progressive Era. Where Americans by in large wanted and liked big government taking care of them. And we are obviously pass that now. But Ron Paul’s problem in the Republican Party are the Neoconservatives and Religious-Right are still in charge of the Republican Party.
But what they also have in common with the Goldwater Conservatives of the 1960s, is the old-guard is dying off and losing influence. While the Goldwater Conservatives were growing back then. And the Libertarian Republicans are growing today, as the Religious-Right and Neoconservatives are dying off and losing influence.
As then U.S. Senator Jim DeMint said back in 2012 before he became President of the right-wing populist Heritage Foundation political action group: “The Republican Party needs to become more Libertarian for them to be successful in the future.” But they do not have to embrace all of their positions, but they have to move in that direction on social issues. And get back to being a real fiscally conservative party. And stop nominating presidential candidates who run as fiscal Conservatives, but have records that suggest otherwise. Who run as Religious-Conservatives, but have records that also suggest otherwise. And get back to being a real Conservative-Libertarian-Federalist party again, that can compete and be successful all over America.
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