The Atlantic has a nice little piece up about C.C. Goldwater, who, while not being a Democrat (yet), ended up delivering Arizona Democratic Party's nominating remarks for Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention. Watch her halting performance below:
From the article:
[The speech wasn't] her first public foray into Democratic politics: In 2008, she came out in favor of Obama and against the Republican nominee from her home state, John McCain.
This might seem like a repudiation of the legacy of the man many credit with pioneering the Republican Party's shift toward an ever more uncompromising conservatism. But CC Goldwater -- a filmmaker who in 2006 completed an HBO documentary about her grandfather called Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater -- sees it as consistent. Goldwater, 52, lived with her grandparents for part of her childhood in order to attend high school in Phoenix (she grew up in the small town of Sedona), but her sense of her grandfather was mainly nonpolitical. […]
"At the end of his career, he was seeing it too," she said. "He was saying things like, 'If I had to run 10 or 20 years from now, I might not get elected in my own party.' The Republican Party has changed into less than what I think Barry Goldwater would be supportive of."
CC's critique of the GOP, one her grandfather began to articulate late in his life as well, is a libertarian one. "He was very vocal about his fear of people like the late Jerry Falwell and the religious right taking over the party," she said. "He was concerned about the change in civil liberties and women's rights." […]
A few weeks ago, CC and her mother Joanne Goldwater, Barry Goldwater's eldest child, endorsed Richard Carmona, the Democratic candidate for Barry Goldwater's onetime U.S. Senate seat, saying he best represented Barry Goldwater's integrity and support for abortion rights.
As a non-Goldwater, non-Arizonan libertarian who is also pro-choice, I prefer Carmona's opponent, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), despite his views on abortion. But even setting aside abortion (an issue on which I can understand the principles of those with whom I disagree), it remains vexing that so many advocates of fiscally limited government nonetheless cheer on restrictive state regulation of intoxicant-consumption, immigrant-hiring, marriage-recognition, and a host of other victimless activities. Democrats in 2012 want nothing more than to change the subject away from their own economic mismanagement and toward the alleged predations of the GOP against people who are not heterosexual white males. Sadly, if predictably, Republicans seem perfectly willing to play along.
