So what are you/is he really trying to say?

I'm fascinated by the shift in the meaning of "conservatism" since Goldwater's time.

Today, Goldwater (whose nickname was "Mr. Conservative") would be seen as too liberal to run for President as a GOP candidate, because he was a staunch supporter of abortion, civil rights, and gay rights — but in his day, the Republican party ("the party of Lincoln") was a stronger supporter of civil rights than the Democrats. (This changed when the GOP altered its character in order to convert the solidly Democratic South; in politics, principles always seem to take a back seat to the ambition for power.)

Ironically, the direction the government has taken during the present administration — larger government, increased spending (indeed, the conversion of the country's largest budget surplus into its largest deficit), reduction of privacy, increased government scrutiny of its own citizens, legislative dismantling of the three-branch system of checks and balances, banning scientific research into certain areas, attacks on civil and gay rights — once upon a time, these were things Conservatives railed against Liberals for doing.

So it's just interesting to me that Goldwater was liberal by today's standards, and the Republican party is liberal by the standards of just a few decades ago.

It's also a little ironic that some of the things he warned about in his acceptance speech, which he claimed could be prevented by a Republican President and a Republican Congress, are coming to pass at the hands of the Republicans.

You could probably power Washington by wrapping his body in copper wire and putting magnets around his grave.

Yep, that's what I thought you were trying to say. :)

I don't know very much about Goldwater, but I think that he would still agree with the dismantling of the welfare state, still a "conservative" hallmark. Um, except Clinton did some of that too, didn't he?

I wonder where he'd stand on Bush's tax cuts.

It's pretty clear to me that Bush is not in fact a true conservative, at least not fiscally. He's a corporatist.

Great essay, BTW.

Thanks. I think he'd disapprove of the tax cuts, for the reason that they're not being matched by reduced spending. (That really pisses me off; I'm no MBA, but even I know that reducing your cash intake and increasing your outflow is an abysmally stupid thing to do.)

Bush is certainly not a true conservative, at least by previous standards of conservatism. But it seems the definition of conservatism keeps shifting. I can't see any other reason for the fact that the conservatives in this country aren't up in arms about what Bush and Congress have been doing to our country — things which even a decade ago would have been anathema to most who self-identified as conservatives.

Good word, "corporatist". But I think that term describes more than a few politicians in both major parties.