To demonstrate how completely the Republican party has become unmoored from its Conservative anchorings, consider how strongly they campaigned against a candidate who embodied traditional Republican memes of marital fidelity, self-reliance, strong Christian faith, the capacity for effective executive management and organizational skills that would be prized in the private sector, the ability to articulate and sell his ideas in meritocracy of the electoral marketplace, and the emphasizing of self-improvement, accumulation of knowledge and the importance of higher education in that process.
Let's also not forget that mainstream Conservative thinking once placed a premium on knowledge of the Constitution, and would have been elated to have elected a president who was also a Constitutional scholar.
Conservative politics as a social movement was conceived to value merit-based performance over preferences, achievement-based promotion over racial or gender based promotion, and a tolerance for individual choice in a variety of personal matters.
Indeed, regarding race relations, Conservatism was touted as a better solution to the problems of race than a legislative and judicial system of redress for past wrongs. The rise of Conservatism would signify a "color blind" approach to employment, college admissions, military promotions, elected office; all persons would have the opportunity to advance themselves as far as their individual merits could carry them.
So what remains of the original Conservative political agenda?
There is a prevailing sentiment amongst many of the paid political journalism and consulting class (including those of the Conservative stripe themselves) that Republicans really aren't serious about many of the core principles of Conservatism any longer.
What's more, maybe they haven't been serious about those principles all along.
Goldwater Conservatism
At the Republican convention of 2004, George Will hailed the notion that the return of Goldwater Conservatism, with it's socially Libertarian planks tolerating gay marriage and abortion rights. Goldwaterism would "help make Republicans more appealing" to young suburban voters where democrats were making gains.
Karl Rove and George Bush decided to make the 2004 election a referendum on their ill-advised military invasion and occupation of Iraq and pushed domestically for battleground state referendums on gay marriage in oppostion to Goldwater's determined principles of non-agressive foreign policy and social libertarianism.
That Will found it necessary to document the "return" of Goldwater Conservatism means that he, at least, felt as though the party had turned away from those principles in the preceding years. But when? The evidence suggests that it may not have been as recently as George Will would have believed.
Four years later, the Republican convention of 2008 ended once again with the punditocracy citing the abandonmment of true Conservative principles as the main reason for their overwhelming defeat.
WWGD? (What Would Goldwater Do?)
The most popular theory advanced during the post-mortem of the 2008 presidential election is that while the Republican party was in shambles, the Conservative movement was not. The Republican party simply had to rediscover its core principles, originally articulated to an ascendant Republican majority by Barry Goldwater himself, lo those many years ago.
But was Goldwater himself a "Goldwater" Conservative?
On paper, he appeared to be. Goldwater's ideas about Conservatism were a combination of popular politically right-center themes, redmeat Republican ideology, and Libertarian minimalism.
As it turns out, Goldwater did do nuance on paper. To paraphrase Saint Barry, "those who fail to learn from the past are bound to repeat it." He went on to claim that accumulated wisdom through diligent study of the past was a desirable trait for a Conservative to have, as opposed to, say, "gut instinct."
Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man. The Conservative does not claim special powers of perception on this point, but he does claim a familiarity with the accumulated wisdom and experience of history, and he is not too proud to learn from the great minds of the past. --"The Conscience of a Conservative"
Goldwater also laid out his themes for the rise of the Republican party, including low taxation and "light" regulation, not the absence of regulation.
Goldwater was also sounding the alarm regarding his observation that both parties were increasingly ignoring the Constitution.
..[the Federal government was becoming]"a Leviathan, a vast national authority out of touch with the people, and out of their control."
Public officials, according to Goldwater, had forgotten why they were elected in the first place.
...[they need to] "understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given."
Constitutionality should always be the first consideration before drafting and passing new legislation.
My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ "interests," I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
As for the Conservative movement itself, he recognized that diversity was a strength.
"...conservatives come from all regions, every social class, every creed and color, all age groups."
There are certainly a number of Goldwater's principles that a lot of readers of DKos would be inclined to take issue with. Goldwater believed that Liberals did not value the individual and their spirituality. He further extended that assertion to the point that Liberals were all but indistinguishable from Marxists in a number of respects.
Goldwater didn't necessarily embrace his own proclamations in support of diversity, individual liberty or excellence in practice, as it turns out.
His emergence on the national political stage in 1964 was coincident with the rise of the national Civil Rights movement, and Lyndon Johnson's efforts to produce legislation supporting federal laws protecting them.
Civil Rights was certainly a national topic of discussion in 1964 and Barry Goldwater had the opportunity to define for his party and the world how Conservatism and Civil Rights could co-exist and fluorish together. The notion that federal legislation to recognize and protect America's Constitutional guarantees for all of its citizens had no inherent conflict with Conservatism's view of limited government. Even William Buckley later recanted his magazine's early opposition to Civil Rights.
Minorities were scarce in the Republican party of 1964, it would have been important to any national politician interested in expanding the appeal of the party to extend a gesture of civility to interested prominent minority figures. Goldwater had his chance with Jackie Robinson.
Jackie was not a natural early 1960's Republican, or actively involved in politics. He was attracted to the party's message of self-reliance. As a businessman, he had the opportunity to work closely with Nelson Rockefeller on issues of minority representation in the party and found him to be a man of compassion and integrity.
Jackie Robinson was ultimately disgusted with what he saw at the 1964 Republican convention, after he was initially attracted to the presidential campaign of the moderate Republican governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller.
Jackie did sense that Goldwater was not sincere about inclusiveness, a color-blind meritocracy, the separation of politics and religion, and the primacy of ideas over ideologies.
Early in 1964 I wrote a Speaking Out piece for The Saturday Evening Post. A Barry Goldwater victory would insure that the GOP would be completely the white man's party. What happened at San Francisco when Senator Goldwater became the Republican standard-bearer confirmed my prediction. ... That convention was one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life. ... A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP. As I watched this steamroller operation in San Francisco, I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.
The same high-handed methods had been there.
The same belief in the superiority of one religious or racial group over another was here. Liberals who fought so hard and so vainly were afraid not only of what would happen to the GOP but of what would happen to America. The Goldwaterites were afraid – afraid not to hew strictly to the line they had been spoon-fed, afraid to listen to logic and reason if it was not in their script. ... It was a terrible hour for the relatively few black delegates who were present. Distinguished in their communities, identified with the cause of Republicanism, an extremely unpopular cause among blacks, they had been served notice that the party they had fought for considered them just another bunch of "niggers". They had no real standing in the convention, no clout. They were unimportant and ignored. One bigot from one of the Deep South states actually threw acid on a black delegate’s suit jacket and burned it.
---from "I Never Had It Made" by Jackie Robinson-------
Jackie Robinson's opinion of Goldwater was galvanized by his experiences at the 1964 convention. Robinson by rights was someone that Conservative Republicans, true to their principles, should have embraced wholeheartedly. He had fought his way to the top of his profession in spite of formidable obstacles. After retirement from baseball, he was a successful businessman and the embodiment of American opportunity. Goldwater would have had a natural ally in Jackie as well as a powerful symbol of self-promotion and entrepeneurialism.
Jackie Robinson had recognized the party's hypocrisy in spite of the Conservative movement's professed love for the merits of knowledge, the inherent value of the individual, and the Constitutional principle of equality.
How little has changed.