In an era when an observant Jew like Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) was a major party nominee for vice president and Jews seem to have reached the top of virtually every profession in this country except the Catholic priesthood, who knew that there were still some Marranos lurking in the backgrounds of would-be presidents?
But the mention of Goldwater ought to lead us to ask an even more pertinent question raised by his granddaughter’s documentary: How did American conservatism – a movement whose leadership Allen aspired to – whose founder was the epitome of crusty libertarianism, become synonymous with a religious right that at times seems obsessed with abortion and homosexuality, as well as, in another great irony, with support for Israel?
Nowhere in Goldwater’s book The Conscience of a Conservative – a tract that was something of a catechism for a generation of American conservatives – was there anything about gays or even abortion. In fact, in his later years in the Senate, Goldwater profanely lambasted religious crusaders like the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Nevertheless, without the religious right, there would have been no Ronald Reagan presidency, 1994 GOP sweep of Congress or President George W. Bush. Though the alliance between the libertarian wing of the party and the religious conservatives still holds, it is fraying.
Though such odd coalitions are par for the course in American politics (it was, after all, a coalition of northern liberals and southern bigots that elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt and other Democrats), the cries for a renewed kulturkampf coming from both ends of the spectrum these days would have cut no ice with Goldwater.
Goldwater’s own misguided failure to support the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (on what he said were constitutional grounds, not prejudice) and the status of his opponent Lyndon Johnson as the heir of the slain John Kennedy doomed his presidential run. He was also labeled a crazy warmonger. (Many supporters of Johnson came to regret that aspersion after their candidate became the man who escalated the Vietnam war.)
But rather than beating the drums to rouse their supporters to the polls to fight against abortion or even more popular causes, such as opposition to gay marriage and immigration, maybe the ideological heirs of Goldwater like George Allen might try channeling the Arizonan’s hard-edged libertarian approach. That and renewed faith in the justice of America’s fight against the Islamofascists who have replaced Communists as the chief threat to our freedom might also win them some more of the Jewish votes they covet.
Maybe, all these years since 1964, Republicans should consider that it was 20th-century American politics’ original “half-Jew” who had the right formula for electoral success after all.