Robert Alan Goldberg. Barry Goldwater. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. xiv + 463 pp. $24.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-06261-8. Reviewed by Steven Niven Published on H-Pol (April, 1996) On the eve of the 1964 Presidential election, neer forebears and in the myth of the individual‐ historian Richard Hofstadter spoke for most aca‐ istic West. Goldberg then traces the Arizona's rise demics, and a majority of the American people, through the GOP, and his emergence as the pre‐ when he asked of the Republican nominee, eminent marketer of right wing ideas, in the U. S. "When, in all our history, has anyone with ideas Senate and in his 1960 manifesto, The Consience so bizarre, so archaic, so self-confounding, so re‐ of a Conservative. The narrative, like Goldwater's mote from the basic American consensus, ever got career, reaches an early climax with the Senator's so far."[1] Three decades later, Barry Goldwater's defeat in the 1964 presidential race, a defeat that calls for lower taxes, States' Rights, and a bal‐ nevertheless laid the groundwork for later Repub‐ anced federal budget have become the orthodoxy lican success. Goldwater's ambivalence about the not only of the Republican Party, but--if President consequences of that success, most notably the Clinton's 1996 State of the Union is any guide--of rise of the Christian right, serves as an intriguing the Democratic Party as well. To be sure, many coda to the biography. academics continue to fnd the conservative ideol‐ Goldberg's key contribution is to place Gold‐ ogy of Goldwater and his successors alien and water frmly in the context of the American West. anachronistic, but it has become much, much He builds on the work of historians who in the harder for them to discount such ideas as re‐ past two decades have deconstructed the myth of moved from the basic American consensus. western individualism. These scholars have ex‐ In Barry Goldwater, Robert Alan Goldberg, posed a region traditionally hostile to "interfer‐ Professor of History at the University of Utah, of‐ ence" from Washington, D.C., but dependent on fers a meticulously researched, highly readable federal subsidies in defeating, frst, the Indians account of how the Arizonan helped shape that and then the even greater challenge of the desert. new conservative consensus. The biography roots In the twentieth century, for instance, New Deal Goldwater's conservatism in the memory of pio‐ water reclamation projects and post-war military H-Net Reviews Keynesianism transformed Goldwater's Arizona in your pants." As campaign chair for Senate Re‐ from barren aridity to Sunbelt prosperity.[2] publicans in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he In the chapters on Goldwater's forebears and used an equally vibrant pitch to win a national coming of age (undoubtedly the most fascinating following among those concerned with Reds in in the volume) we witness the journey of his Jew‐ China, Eastern Europe, and in American labor ish grandfather from the Polish shtetl, through unions. Preaching to the converted, Goldwater the boom and bust years of the California gold had little need to justify his aggressive conser‐ rush, to the edge of the Arizona desert, where he vatism; he merely needed to fre up the troops. established a thriving dry goods store. By the time Month after month, he honed his uncompromis‐ Barry was born in 1909, his father had abandoned ing message in front of true blue conservatives. his ancestral faith for Episcopalianism, and had The Senator's penchant for bluntness also transformed Goldwater's into the state's frst de‐ made good copy for the national news media, who partment store, the repository of all that was noted that Goldwater's rugged "style" was, like the stylish east of the Rockies. urbane John Kennedy's, attractive to women, but These chapters also reveal the shaping of also more appealing to men. Critics who doubted Goldwater's philosophy, the consciousness of a there was little of value under his trademark cow‐ conservative. Although he admits that he was boy hat promptly labeled him the Marlboro Man. "born in a log cabin equipped with a golf course, a But even in the television age, a politician pool table, and a swimming pool," Goldwater could not rise on style alone. Goldberg makes cherished his pioneering forebears and the civi‐ clear that the Senator benefited from a renascent lization they out of this wilderness. He ignored radical right, particularly the John Birch Society that government facilitated these individuals' ac‐ (JBS). Like Goldwater, the Birchers warned tions. He also developed a life-long love of the out‐ against the scourge of socialism at home and doors, cultivating the practical skills and persona abroad: unlike Goldwater, the JBS believed that of a frontiersman. Goldwater viewed the growing the red menace reached as far as 1600 Pennsylva‐ collectivism of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly nia Avenue. Goldwater found this and the Soci‐ the rise of labor unions, as "coercion." America ety's more conspiratorial claims ludicrous, but in could only fourish, he argued, when it returns to the 1950s, he contended that Birchers "are the the individualistic ethos of the pioneers. Observ‐ finest people in my community" (p. 138). Quite ing that Americans have traditionally seen the simply, as Goldwater's ambitions broadened, he Arizonan as a Western original, Goldberg con‐ needed the grass roots fervor of true believers. cludes that "when Americans look at Barry Gold‐ It was, however, Goldwater's bold, self-confi‐ water they see their mythic past" (p. 335). dent manifesto, The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldberg makes clear that style mattered far (1960) that propelled him to leadership of the more than substance in Barry's rise through the grass roots right. Conservatism, the Senator told Republican ranks. Goldwater, neither a legislative his readers, was not concerned with serving the tactician, nor an original conservative thinker, interests of a privileged few, but with extending was a marketer of ideas. Retail had always been freedom to all. New Deal liberalism and "Modern his strong point. At the height of the Depression, Republicanism" had sought to promote the gener‐ Goldwater had set a sales record in his father's de‐ al welfare. In contrast, Goldwater argued, conser‐ partment store, and in wartime he had cleverly vatives viewed each person as a complex individ‐ hawked men's underwear decorated with red ants ual, and as such should strive to "achieve the using the jingle, "You'll rant and dance with ants maximum amount of individual freedom ... con‐ 2 H-Net Reviews sistent with the maintenance of social order." He crusade. For Texas Senator John Tower, the '64 also defended a narrow reading of the Constitu‐ convention was the Alamo before San Jacinto. tion, in which the states served as the main bul‐ Goldberg largely affirms the view of most wark against the federal government's encroach‐ scholars of the new right (see, e.g., the Edsalls, ment on the individual's right to liberty. That de‐ Chain Reaction, 1992) that in defeat, Goldwater fense of states rights proved attractive to southern shifted his party's political, ideological, and eco‐ white conservatives. nomic base from the East to the South and West. There was little ideologically fresh in the vol‐ The GOP platform's equivocal stance on Civil ume. Goldwater had essentially written a 123 Rights, and its denunciation of "inverse discrimi‐ page primer of the best of Hayek, Buckley, Russell nation" shattered blacks' already brittle allegiance Kirk and Milton Friedman. But, as Goldberg to the party of Lincoln, and broadened the party's makes clear, it was once more Goldwater's mar‐ appeal among whites in the Deep South. By demo‐ keting technique, his Western bluntness, and his nizing the federal government and incanting the shoot from the hip style (notably in his call for to‐ mantra of low taxes and balanced budgets, the tal victory in the Cold War) that sold the product. Goldwaterites had fnally repudiated Eisenhow‐ Pat Buchanan spoke for many young conserva‐ er's "Modern Republicanism." From 1964 onward, tives, when he recalled that Conscience was "our Republicanism became synonymous with "conser‐ new testament; it contained the core beliefs of our vatism" and conservatism became synonymous political faith; it told us why we had failed, what with worship of the market, particularly in high we must do. We read it, memorized it, it quoted it" growth areas like San Diego and Orange County, (p. 139). California, where Goldwater outpolled Johnson. There is little new in Goldberg's narrative of Nineteen sixty-four also witnessed the emergence the 1964 presidential election, but he tells that sto‐ of a new conservative champion, Ronald Reagan, ry deftly and judiciously. He catalogues in detail who offered the same policies, but with a softer the internecine party machinations involved in sell: the calm reassurance of a midwesterner securing the nomination. (Perhaps too much de‐ rather than Goldwater's western brusqueness. tail, as Goldwater himself is sometimes lost). But Some may fnd more problematic Goldberg's he captures well the Senator's less than vaulting defense of Goldwater against a "defamation" cam‐ ambition, his insecurity, and his clear sense of in‐ paign unprecedented in American political histo‐ evitable defeat--a defeat sealed by an acceptance ry (p. 209). Contemporary conservative diatribes speech that declared "extremism in the name of against "liberal media bias" might steel the reader liberty" to be "no vice." against claims of "unfairness" in political report‐ Goldberg aptly labels the San Francisco con‐ ing. And, indeed, Goldberg concedes that the Sen‐ vention the "Woodstock of American Conser‐ ator's proclivity to "shoot from the hip" contrib‐ vatism." For years to come, the new right would uted to his negative press.