>First of all, you said Goldwater was "Ideologue of
>modern-day conservative thought". You didn't "primarily"
>make any kind of distinction. Then you stated that he was
>the one who initially turned the South into a GOP
>stronghold, which I showed you was false then and for the
>most part still is false today.

Do conservatives who consider themselves libertarians still primarily vote GOP?

Aren't conservatives who don't consider themselves republicans constitute a small minority of conservatives?

Weren't many of those conservatives influenced by Barry?

The answers to all of those questions is yes.

Pointing out a semantical error doesn't weaken my argument. It is not at all uncommon for people to use the words GOP and Conservative or Liberal & Democrat interchangeably........you make the same mistake yourself in this very post.

So trying to use semantics to win this argumeng rings very hollow.

My point with respect to Goldwater becoming a modern day idealogue for the GOP (and other conservatives at that) - still stands.

Furthermore, why is that every source I mentioned, many of whom were FAVORABLE to GOldwater/Conservatives in general - point to Goldwater as turning the south into a GOP stronghold?

Well?

But let's look at numbers:

2004 Governors:

http://www.rga.org/files/2004-05%20Governor%20Party%20Control%20-%20UPDATE%20BIG1.jpg

Granted - most states have GOP Governors nowadays.

Still - if you look at the deep south - they all have GOP Governors (Except LA) -

If you look at the map overall - it depends on what you count as the South.......

Okalahoma and West Virginia are Midwest to me - so I see 12 southern states - or 8/12 having GOP Governors or you can include them and make it 8/14 - depends on how you slice it - although it doesn't prove much because you'd really need to look at Congressmen and Senators since most states have GOP Governors nowadays by a 28 to 22 Majority.

Presidential Elections - GOP Candidates typically win Southern States - which wasn't the case prior to ole Barry Goldwater - Carter can be chalked up as an anomoly.

In 1996 - http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe1996/map1.htm

Dole did fairly well down south and in the midwest too - which on an idealogical basis is very similar to the south. If you break it down along Civil War Lines - the South voted GOP and the North voted Democrat.

That wouldn't have been the case prior to 1964.....

The South is where the GOP gets the majority of its votes as far as Presidential Elections, from an area that say 60 years ago wouldn't vote Republican.

You don't think cats like Jesse Helms jumped ship to the GOP for fun do you?

>JFK's election showed that the Democrats did not have a
>stronghold on the South as you said they did previously in
>presidential elections. If they did, then there wouldn't
>have been a need to get Johnson as a running mate. And
>several political analysts have stated that Kennedy needed
>Johnson in order to get enough support in the South to win
>the election.

Democrats vs. Republicans wasn't as clear cut was it was back then, which makes the JFK reference irrelevant.

Both parties had a conservative southern faction and a more liberal northern faction.

Goldwater is credited with wresting the GOP away from its northeastern faction.

As far as the Civil Rights act goes....

http://www.congresslink.org/civil/essay.html

"Democrats supported it 152-96. It is interesting to note that Democrats from northern states voted overwhelmingly for the bill, 141 to 4, while Democrats from southern states voted overwhelmingly against the bill, 92 to 11"

Obviously, Northern Democrats & Southern Democrats were very different.

It's illogical to lump them all together as democrats.

JFK picking Johnson was in many ways analogous to say Kerry considering McCain as a running mate - in order to appeal to both conservatives and liberals.

>Johnson may have said the Civil Rights Act would cause the
>Democrats to lose the South, but he died three years before
>he could see Jimmy Carter win the 1976 election by taking
>every single Southern state.

But he was alive to see Nixon use a "Southern Strategy" to win every state that was a member of the old confederacy except Texas. That election was called the "re-aligning" election as Nixon won states that were typically won by Democrats.

He was also alive to see Goldwater win five states that were all in the deep south.

Nixon leaving office in disgrace was more the reason that Carter won, than anything else.

Plus, Carter was a southerner - every Democrat President since JFK has been a southerner, it's not a coincidence.


>Even then, Barry's influence within the GOP in the 70's was
>more of a demagogue than anything. Nixon and Ford were
>considered moderates, and not close to conservative as
>Goldwater or his followers. Only until Carter proved to be
>a failure was the GOP or really anyone in the country was
>about to allow a Goldwater-type conservative become a
>political power.

Than we had Reagon, George Sr. & George Jr.

Lot's of modern day conservative thought that is "Goldwater-esque"

As it is - the sources I provided were supporting my claim and were from conservative viewpoints.


>The South has ALWAYS been more conservative than the North.
>The reason why the Republicans never got a foothold in the
>South before Reagan was due to the continued animosity due
>to the Civil War and Reconstruction, where the U.S.
>government forced Republican governors into the rebel
>states.
>
>The fact that you would sit here and state the South is more
>conservative now than it was in the past - with states
>rights (which had been a issue since well before the civil
>war. It didn't start with Goldwater or the Civil Rights
>Movement), the belief that states had the right to the
>nullification of Supreme Court decisions (see Andrew
>Jackson), secession, resisting union creations in the late
>1800's - today, the fact that many were skeptical of the
>growth of government well before then....shows you have
>absolutely no clue of what you're talking about.

You completely missed the point and have just used GOP & Conservative interchangeably the same mistake I made earlier........

I never said the south is more conservative now - I said the south is now a GOP stronghold and became that way after Goldwater's run for president was the impetus for it. Even if it did take several years to come to past.

Southerners now vote overwhelmingly for the GOP - which was unheard of 50 years ago as they voted Democrat back then - only they were voting Conservative Democrats.

The South has always been more conservative than the North, they just vote for conservatives in a different party now - a party they used to hate.

I think you're not even factoring in how different the parties were prior to the Civil Rights act being signed - as each party had siginificant liberal and conservative factions and were more aligned along North vs. South lines, than the Conservative vs. Liberal lines they are now.

So perhaps it is you (as usual) who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Care to tell me how Global Crossing is a bigger Bankruptcy than Enron, but people are just making a big deal over the latter because of Bush?





M2