AuH20 TV

David Boaz reminds you to set your TiVo for Mr. Conservative, the Barry Goldwater documentary debuting on HBO next Monday. The film was produced by C.C. Goldwater, who spoke to The New York Times Magazine about her grandfather a couple weeks back.

Matt Welch made the case for "Goldwater Democrats" last year, and Glenn Garvin reviewed a recent Goldwater biography back in 2002.

Comments

[Isaac Bartram]

This is one of the times I regret not having cable.

As to “libertarians, who tend to ignore the social conservatism of the senator’s 1964 presidential campaign…”, everyone was more socially conservative in 1964. Even the liberals.

[sean]

Should I be worried that documentary is going to explain how Barry was really a liberal democrat?

[Ashish George]

It very well might. But if it focuses more on Goldwater having very little in common with George W. Bush’s GOP, I think the film will be fine.

[highnumber]

This will make it to Google video one way or another soon, right?

[Deus ex Machina]

The title really demonstrates how politics have changed. Would any campaign in this day and age dare use a chemical formula as one of their slogans?

[Gene Berkman]

Freedom from government was the central message of the Goldwater campaign in 1964 and it is tragic to see what happened to the Republican Party in the years since then.

During the campaign, supporters including the national weekly Human Events urged Goldwater to stress law & order themes more strongly, and make a more direct appeal to “White Backlash” but he stuck to his emphasis on the need to limit government.

Sen. Goldwater refused to campaign in Mississippi because the Mississippi GOP had a confederate flag on their letterhead. In 1980, Ronald Reagan kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, scene of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964.

[J. Peter Freire]

When asked why she didn’t interview William F. Buckley for the documentary, C.C. Goldwater replied that there was only so much time they could dedicate to a single perspective. Oh? Is that why so many liberals are interviewed? It strikes me as odd that the one guy whose insight into the campaign would be most valuable, in light of any reference to the movement, is ignored on what sounds like a technicality. I’ll watch, eagerly, but it’s kind of like talking about the School of Athens without naming who Plato’s talking to in the center.

[Liberty4All]

How can you do a documentary about Barry Goldwater and include Al Franken but not Bill Buckley? Give me a break! I’d rather read Lee Edwards bio on Barry Goldwater or better yet Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative. This seems like a waste of time and a rewriting of history.

[FatDrunkAndStupid]

Gene,
I have no idea if Barry Goldwater campaigned in Mississippi or not or if your story about letterhead is true (it seems highly dubious because anti-confederate battle flag sentiment is a PC related phenomina of very recent origins) but in your attempt to slander Reagan you overlook one very important point. Jimmy Carter won Mississippi (and all the South save only Virginai in 1976). There was a reason for Reagan to campaign there. Johnson by contrast, was one of the most hated men in the state of Mississippi in 1964. Once he won the primary Goldwater would have had no reason to return to Mississippi.