tv Capitol Hill Hearings CSPAN December 28, 2011 8:00pm-1:00am EST
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we have a great turn up to salute the veterans of the great state of iowa. this is a date to remember for one thing -- 165 years ago, on december 28, 1846, iowa became a state judge, joining this great american union of hours. happy 165th birthday, iowa. [cheers and applause] the rest of our group are all veterans. the program is an honor to
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veterans by veterans. and the one we will honor the most tonight is our special guest that we will introduce a little later. until then, i want to extend greetings to all of you. talking about dates to remember, the birth date of iowa, i predict that another great date to remember will be january 3, 2012. [cheers and applause] we will make history, i believe. we already have. and we will finish off -- [cheers and applause] it is because of all of you.
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we will make it happen. with that, we will start our program. it is my pleasure to ask crystal mcintyre, who was in the united states army in the intelligence corps from 1988 to 1991, to lead us in the a pledge of the regions. please stand for the pledge and remain standing for the prayer. the prayer will be followed by ron duncan. he served in the united states air force. he was an air police with strategic air command from 1962 to 1968. we start with crystal and then we will go to ron duncan for the prayer. thank you very much. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for
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which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. please remain standing for the prayer. >> thank you, crystal. and thank you, everyone, for coming tonight. i would like to open up before the prayer, if i may -- if i may reach back to the very deep corridors of our american history, over two hundred years ago, in 1768, pastor richard salters elected servant to his congregation in massachusetts stated in this one paragraph "god never gives man up to be slaves until they lose their national virtue and abandon themselves to slavery." let us pray, please. heavenly father, we come to you in this great land which you have entrusted us to keep. restore our faith and preserve the integrity and destiny of our
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nation. give us an understanding of the time and the hour set before us. comfort those who have lost their loved ones protecting our citizens here on our soil and those great defenders who came out of our ranks to defend us abroad. give each one of us and measure of courage and protect our men and women in uniform and may your children never feel the heavy change of tyranny. be the god of our fathers lead us to victory in his great endeavor. in jesus' name, amen. thank you. >> you may be seated. thank you. at this time, i would like to introduce to you a fellow by the name of john stellar. it is fun to say that. he is from the united states army with a refueling tanker
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supporters for the ron paul campaign. he serves the nine states marine corps with heavy equipment, repair, and is also a marksman instructor. he served in the marine corps from 1976 to 1980. when will give us a brief overview -- glenn will give us a brief overview of the both of military -- len will give us a brief overview of the oath of military. and glenn, please join us. [applause] >> good evening. i want to thank you all for being here this evening. i want to thank the rumple campaign for inviting me to join
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you. this is indeed an honor. most importantly, i want to salute every military veteran here this evening who is presently wearing the uniform of the united states of america or who has worn the uniform in the past in defense of our constitution. you deserve to be honored. veterans, we salute you. give them a hand. [applause]
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>> we thank you. although this gathering is made up of veterans and non-veterans alike, we would like to speak to the veterans first. as a veteran, we have all sworn an oath before god and men to protect this country's constitution. notice in the oath of enlistment -- "i will solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that i will obey the orders of the president of united states and the orders of the officers appointed over me according to regulations and uniform code and military justice, so help me god." i first swore that both back in 1976.
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"to support and defend the constitution of the united states." like you, i kept my oath. in january of this year, i was sworn in as an iowa state rep. and the oath i took was as follows. "i do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of iowa and i will faithfully discharge the duties of rep according to the best of my abilities." notice again in the oath -- "i will support the constitution of the united states." i am keeping that oath. but there is another man whom we all know who has faith police warned the military oath and kept it and the oath of a congressman of the united states and he has kept it all so as well. he has sworn the following oath
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many times. i do solemnly swear that i will the support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office i am about to enter, so help me god." ron paul has proven that he can be trusted to keep his both in office. [cheers and applause] he has sworn numerous times to support and defend the constitution of the united states. here is my point, veterans.
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why would you or i'd be willing to put our very lives and limbs all to protect and defend the constitution of the united states and then, at the same time, be willing to support a candidate for president who has not demonstrated that same level of faithfulness, commitment, or fidelity to the same? the answer is you would not. that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we support ron paul. because he supports the constitution. [cheers and applause] he supports the constitution. that is why,, another january, a generic 20th, 2013, i want to be
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present -- that is why, come another jane wright, january 20, 2013, i want to be present when he takes another both -- "i declare that i will support the constitution of the united states, so help me god." [cheers and applause] that is what we want to hear. that is what we want to see. and with god's help, that is what we will make happen. thank you. god bless you. and go ron paul!
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>> all right. thank you, the hon. when massey. -- the hon. glenn massey. now we will sing two songs, one being due to me and to all of you. two verses, verse 1 anniversary of "america the beautiful." ♪ oh, beautiful for spacious skies ♪ for amber waves of grain ♪ for purple mountain majesties ♪ above the fruited plain
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god -- may god thy gold refine till all success be nobleness devinevery gain [cheers and applause] >> he has had a tremendous impact on state government and the legislative process and standing for truth, standing for the constitution, and standing for the principles of the people -- that the people in deed govern themselves through their elected representatives. at this time, i would like to
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introduce to you senator kent sorenson who has a special support tonight. >> tonight is a little tough for me. michele bock men has fought -- initial bachman -- michele bock has been fighting dearly for my values. when the republican establishment will be coming after him over the next few days, i felt it was my duty to -- [cheers and applause] just like he came to my aid
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during my race, which was a very nasty race. it is difficult, but it is the right thing to do because he fights for the values that i hold dear as well. i just want to tell you guys that i will do everything i can in the next few days to help in iowa and beyond. we will take ron paul all the way to the white house in 2012. [cheers and applause] >> we were fighting what was called the viet cong -- >> we went hand-in-hand --
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>> 9 added 56 came back in that whole year. that is hard -- nine out of 56 came back in that whole year. that is hard to take. >> we had never been thanked for our service, never. >> ron paul got my medals and presented them to me. >> they get the medal that they finally deserve >> ron paul is a veterans best friend. >> that will always be there. >> i am ron paul and i approved this message. [cheers and applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, with your help and our work, the next
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president of united states ron paul! [cheers and applause] >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you for coming. thank you. it sounds like we are getting close to an election. [applause] thank you very much for being here. i want to thank all the veterans your on the stage and all the veterans who are here and those
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who have come. i want to introduce you to to family members here. i have two granddaughters with me, lisa and linda. they are sisters. [cheers and applause] i also want to thank kant's sorensen for stopping by. that was very nice, was it not? [cheers and applause] this is a wonderful evening because we will emphasize our national defense, our veterans, and our military, which is, of course, very important. as has been said, the constitution is a rather important document and that we should uphold it. [applause] the constitution is very clear. the constitution is very clear on what the responsibilities are
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>> there are a lot of problems. the problems are manifested by a lot of people being upset in this country. we are all upset and we want to change it in washington. as a matter of fact, that is what our purpose is. >> i am a veteran, too! [screaming] >> if we get the diagnosis right, i will get the treatment right. right now, most people in this country know that there is seriously wrong. there's something seriously wrong with our foreign policy. [screaming] >> of course, we all know that there is something seriously wrong with our monetary system
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and with our federal reserve system. [cheers and applause] the best way to boil down the crisis that we face is the debt crisis. we are in too much debt. it is unsustainable. our productivity is going down. special interests have benefited. wall street gets bailed out and the debt is dumped on the people and that needs to be reversed. let me tell you. [cheers and applause] but we are in this trouble because we have not followed the rule of law. the rule of law is the constitutional. article 88 tells us exactly what we are allowed to do. we are not allowed to do anything that is not explicitly given to us in the constitution. [cheers and applause]
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as a matter of fact, the constitution is mainly a document of prohibitions against the federal government entered into our lives and injured -- and in treating and our economic condition. there is no authority in the constitution to become the policeman of the world. [cheers and applause] and although there is clear evidence that we should have a strong national defense, which is a vital function of the federal government, we also know that, if you do not take care of financial affairs at home, the problems that we can get from the problems we are seeing today magnified. we have to maintain a healthy
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economy every bit as much as we have to have a strong national defense. [cheers and applause] one of the reasons we have gotten into trouble overseas has been that we have not followed the rules. it has been a long time since this country declared war. the last time we did it come after we were attacked and properly so, we attacked both japan and germany. guess what. it was declared by the congress and supported by the people. it was over in approximately four years. we had proper authority and we were together. since that time, we have not done it. i maintain that a president should never take a country to war unless there is a declaration of war. [cheers and applause]
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for many years, young men and women have been called to service. some of us have been drafted. others have joined with the purpose of providing defense for this country. but because so many of our young people have in the past and currently joined to defend this country, they can become disillusioned if they find out that the fighting and killing and the spending of the money does not provide national defence that we are not under threat. sometimes we go looking for trouble and put our troops in harm's way unnecessarily. [cheers and applause] and because our country is literally bankrupt, we cannot pay our bills and we have to
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keep borrowing, we keep spending, which keep printing money, and we cannot maintain this presence around the world. therefore, we cannot even afford to take care people back home. my suggestion is to look at our foreign policy and question whether or not we should be in 130 countries and have 900 bases. i say that is way too many and it is time to come home from many of those places. [cheers and applause] too often, when we have been called to duty and so many of us have gone, coming back home has not always been the best of receptions. as both a physician and a congressman and having been in the military, i have to deal with a lot of veterans problems. it is very, very frustrating
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because, so often, veterans are shunned. they do not get the treatment they really desert and the money is being wasted elsewhere. [cheers and applause] it took a long time for the victims of agent orange in the vietnam war to finally get their treatment. persian gulf war syndrome. even today, we are currently suffering from the abuse of our veterans when they come home. hundreds of thousands are looking for help. i had a young man the other day who just got out of the military. he was sad and despondent about fellow soldiers who were killed when he was over in iraq. but he says, if you notice happening now? some of my buddies are committing suicide. it is like an epidemic. something is terribly wrong with the system where it ends up so
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tragically and the help is not available. i believe that it is related to our foreign policy. foreign policy should dictate how we go about -- how we go to war. we should obey the constitution. go very sparingly. and we should go to preserve the peace and prosperity and the safety of this country, but not to go looking for trouble in different places of the world. [cheers and applause] we have had a foreign policy that does not make a whole lot of sense. we go around and find a from the dictator and we say that our national security is best if we prop of this dictator. we have done it numerous times and we give him a lot of money. then it goes badly and he
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changes his mind and we have a fight. and then there are other countries that do not want to cooperate with us and we go ahead and use weapons and destroy their countries. so we have enforcer money. there has to be another option. how about talking to them once in awhile instead of using force and intimidation? i was called to duty, called to service in 1962 during the missile crisis in cuba. that was resolved rather quickly, but then i was in the air force five years later. i did not go to vietnam, but it was during that time. the french were there and the decade that the americans were in vietnam, how many people were
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killed? maybe 1 million vietnamese, tens of thousands of french soldiers, and then 60,000 americans? then we had to leave after all of this money and waste. what did that usher in economically? we can have guns and butter at the time was said. then they give us the 1960's, which was a very bad time. but the argument for us to go there was not to go to congress whether or not we should declare war. the argument was, if we do not go there and stop communism from growing over there, there will be a domino effect and the whole region would turn communist. it turned out that, if we had walked away from there, china -- china had become less communistic when we left. they became capitalistic in many ways. and now they are our banker. so what has happened in vietnam?
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has it gotten worse? have they gone communist? no. they have become westernize. they liked what we were doing. they started trading and interleaving with us. we travel there. we invested there. they come here. just think what has been achieved between our two countries in peace and what was not achieved in war and waste. we need to look at that. [applause] a strong america is necessary. a strong america will give us a much better chance for peace. but also, what we need is we also have to have prosperity as well. so that is why is economic conditions are imported. that is the big problem we are facing. even if somebody would say, no, we cannot cut a nickel out of
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the military budget, just remember that the military budget is different than the defense budget. the military budget is the money that all of the military- industrial complex ones. but the leaders of both parties are not interested in cutting one nickel out of overseas expenditures. most of them want to increase it. and they are furious if you do not meet the automatic increases. my suggestion is that we have problems here at home. we're spending too much money overseas. we are getting into much trouble. our obligation is to take care of the people at home and long time before we are to be the policeman of the world. [cheers and applause] so this means cut spending why
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what -- cut spending by $1 trillion in the first year. [cheers and applause] this would take some change in attitude. like i said, we have to have a change in foreign policy, not sacrifice one penny for defense, but stop spending so much money overseas. that should be a lot easier for we, the people, to come together, both liberals, moderates, and conservatives if they want to concentrate on taking care of america. why can we not come together and stop the spending overseas? i would think that is the easiest place to cut spending. so half the spending i'm proposing in the first year would come from overseas spending. [applause] but it would mean that we would
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bring the troops home. we would bring them home from korea and japan and germany. [cheers and applause] there may well be an immediate economic benefit by all of the salaries and wages of the military spending their money here at home instead of germany and japan. [cheers and applause] but that still would not be enough cutting. you'd have to cut some more. so i think five departments can be cut. then go back on the budget levels of 2006. toernment was not like small in 2006. if you go back 2006, the budget would be balanced. the only reason this does not
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happen is because people in washington are in denial. they do not think there is a spending problem today. the president announced that he will ask congress to raise the national debt by $1.20 trillion. booing] absolutely not. but it was the congress to have this resolution, when they created this super committee that would solve all our problems. they may deal with the president. this is the way it works. the president goes to the congress and says i need to raise the national debt by $1.20 trillion. if congress does not do anything -- if congress does not reject the request, in 15 days, it becomes law. it is automatic. he will ask for this increase
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while they are on christmas vacation. so the debt will go up automatically. they are on autopilot. believe me, this economy will not sustain it much longer. this is a worldwide phenomenon. it is a dollar phenomenon. it is a monetary phenomenon and it is intertwined. we are very much engaged right now in bailing out europe. we're doing this through the federal reserve. the federal reserve does not even get audited. until we get rid of the federal reserve, we ought to know what they're doing. [cheers and applause]
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[chanting] we are approaching a crisis time, economically speaking and politically speaking. our liberties are a threat. not by outside invaders. we have the strongest military. we have done a great job militarily. but we have also taken an oath of that we should aware of enemies both foreign and domestic and we have a lot of freedoms under threat right now. we are at a crossroads and we need to make a decision. this is a decision that the founders had to make because they got sick and tired of a king. they got sick and tired of taxes and their people being put in jail. and we need to make a decision once again -- what should the role of government be?
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the founders wrote the constitution and said that the role of the federal government would be very minimal. right now, the federal government is very, very large. that means that every power and authority that the government gets undermined your personal liberty. the goal in all political action, from my viewpoint, should be the promotion and preservation of individual liberty. [cheers and applause] if our military has been so successful and we do not have to worry about anybody invading us, then what are our concerns? to me, it is the economy and the way we have live beyond our means and the way we have become careless with our liberties.
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we allow our government to do too much. we had a major crisis, a major event that was so terrible for us to withstand. that happened on 9/11. 9/11 was a very bad episode and a lot had to be done. but we did not do exactly the right things at the right time. for instance, one of the first things they did within days before they decided who did what and where do we go, they passed a long piece of legislation that had been floating around for years and they show a bit on the floor. within an hour, it was passed and no one had time to read it. that was the patriot act and that the boy your fourth amendment rights. we do not need the patriot act. [cheers and applause]
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and, of course, just recently, we have had some other changes. as a matter of fact, earlier this year, the president announced a policy change. he said that it was proper for him to have the authority to assassinate an american citizen, even if they have not been charged with anything, if he thought it was [was [booing -- if he thought it was necessary. [booing] look principle is that the
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president is very, very dangerous. the following week, they said that his son looks like a sheet character, too. they sent another missile over to get his son. they got him, plus his cousin. they were in the backyard barbecuing. kill them both. the sun was 16 years old. this is not the way america is supposed to be. we are supposed to be a nation of laws, the rule law. [cheers and applause] in one sense, when we go into the military, we take the oath and fight and endanger ourselves to protect our constitution. at the same time, our constitution is being eroded here at home. two weeks ago, the national defense authorization act has in it -- i am always impressed a
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that's a many people know about it appeared that means we have a healthy society and the internet is working. [cheers and applause] that bill essentially eliminates -- it institutionalizes military law appeared a military can -- it institutionalizes military law. the military can arrest an american citizen for no reason. fortunately, we are able to get some information out. a lot of what we have done in our campaign makes use of the internet. also, there is an attack on the internet right now.
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they are opening of the doors to know everything you do and to measure everything you do to protect you from yourselves. government cannot protect you from yourself and they do not need to be taking over the internet either. [cheers and applause] all of these things are done to take away the fourth amendment -- they call that the patriot act. for the internet, is the stock online piracy act. when the patriot act was being sat next to someone who was voting for it and i was voting against it. [cheers and applause] i said to him, why are you
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voting for this? you haven't even had a chance to read what is in it. >> i know that. >> why will you vote for it? he said, well, the conditions are that we just had this attack and people want us to do something. and it is called a patriot act. how can i vote against the patriot act. what do i do if i have to go home and explain it to them? but that is your job. go home and explain it to them. [cheers and applause] we will have to make a decision really soon, whether it is six months or two years, i do not know, but really soon. we cannot tell when these events will come. austrian economics fully understood that there was a housing bubble. we knew there was an asset
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bubble. so there are certain events that are coming that will happen. they will be very dangerous. but they may come in a day or a week or a year. but the foundation of the system has been eroded. so the collapsing of the system -- the financial system is on shaky legs. the militarism that we have overseas is very shaky because there are plans right now to spread into syria and how soon can we start bombing iran? that is very precarious. so we now have a system where our personal liberties are not being protected and there could be problems in the street. we have had some indication that people are speaking out and they have every right to and they should, whether it is the tea party movement are the occup y movement. they're desperate because they are dissatisfied with the government and they're looking for answers. but we have to work our way out
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of this and respect to the honor and rule of law and respect individuals and protect everybody, not just certain people from all of these crimes. [applause] i talked a lot about the war's going on overseas. i did my best to try to stop them. i remember the first speech to give on the house floor about trying to stop something in iraq. it did not happen in 2001 or 2000. it happened in 1998. that is when they passed a bill that it is now our policy to have regime change in iraq and it would lead to war. we know what they're trying to do and we have to work our way out of it. that is why i want work on spending. you take the elderly, on social
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security, but we cannot honor that contract if we keep spending that money overseas. so i would take care of those people on medicaid and medicare and the people at home on social security. but you cannot do it the way we are doing it today. if we continue like today, you'll have runaway inflation and an economic calamity. you have zero islands in the streets and that will be very dangerous. -- you will have violence in the streets and that will be very dangerous. we have let something very wonderful slip away from us, something that we have all benefited by. you and i and our families and for years -- even today, we still have a lot of apparent wealth. but our wealth today is all based on debt. if all the bills had to be paid, there would not be much wealth. what if we had to pay $3 trillion to the chinese? you cannot have it based on debt. but what has happened is we had
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a great constitution, we have maximum freedom, we had a continent that was special with a lot of natural resources protected by the oceans, and we got soft. we had so much wealth then as a people. we concentrated more on the wealth rather than our liberties. and now our liberties are slipping away and our wealth will as well. you do not have true -- when you do not have true liberty, your wealth cannot last. i do my share of criticizing the president. i have already done that this evening ones. it was not this administration. it was not just the previous administration. it has been decades of bad economic ideas and bad foreign policy and bad monetary policy. that is where the problem is. [cheers and applause]
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this system bred the interest in government being taken over by the special interests. you would do much better by having a high-paid lobbyist that producing a product. producing products became more difficult because over-taxation and over-regulation of the monetary system. we have chased our businesses away. it became such that lobbyists in washington became the most important thing. medical reforms, new legislation, republican or democrat -- guess who gets involved? it is the lobbyists of insurance companies. people are not represented. they might tell you that. but you are not really represented. in a free society, you do not have the government involved. it works differently. look at this effort to give everybody a house?
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a house anddy got everybod ended up losing a house. what about the government taking over education? they have done that for many years. i do not think that is a good idea. we should not have the department of education. [cheers and applause] but the results have not been good because we became more dependent on the government and the government would take care of us and provide for us. in the old days, like when i was in college and medical school, i was able to work my way through school and it was not so expensive. but today, how difficult it is. it is so expensive and it is hard to get a job. so the enticement is to become an indentured servant to the government, borrow the money, and zero the government money for years and not be able to the governmentrowe
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money for years and not be able to train for menial jobs. our current students zero more money more than their credit cards. it is a failed system. people are giving up. i think it is a healthy attitude. do not depend on the government. the government is supposed to protect us and give us our freedom and let us take care of ourselves and not be dependent on the government. [cheers and applause] there is one other war that i wanted to mention that i think has been detrimental to our liberties. it is a war near home. we have a problem on our southern border. i know that is a long way off from iowa. but we have a problem on the borders.
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in the last five years, it is estimated that 45,000 individuals, probably mostly mexican, have been killed on the border. so there is a border war going on down there. but here we are spending hundreds of billions of dollar losing our troops are trying to decide where the boundary line is between afghanistan and pakistan. i think we should be more concerned about our own borders here at home. [cheers and applause] but the war that we have on our southern border is complex. we have the issue of illegal immigration. my argument on illegal immigration, if you subsidize it, you would not have -- if you did not subsidize it, you would not have so much of it.
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the war on drugs has been very detrimental to our personal liberties as an excuse to invade our privacy and due to the many things that are unnecessary and it does not solve the problem. [cheers and applause] before 1914, there were no federal rules or regulations on drugs. the real war came up in the 1970's. we spent a couple trillion dollars on the war on drugs and there are still a lot of people using the drugs. and a lot of times, they are using prescription drugs, more sought -- more so than the illegal ones. but prohibition of alcohol did not work. there is something we should think about on this. if it is not working, why are we doing this? the one basic principle is that
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alcohol is a very deadly drug. if a person becomes an alcoholic and asks for help, we show a little empathy and treat them as a patient. we have centers where they go to. but if someone is caught using a drug that they have made illegal arbitrarily, you become a criminal. maybe it is because i am a physician, but i like to think of the drug problem more as a medical problem than throwing people in prison for using it. [cheers and applause] freedom is a wonderful experiment. it has not been tried all that much. most of history has been run by tyrants, dictators, and kings and pharaohs, and even, today, i fear that our government is becoming more tyrannical.
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we do not have property rights and they do not need search warrants to come into our houses. we are losing a whole lot. but freedom to me is a wonderful -- is so wonderful because people use freedom in different ways. you do not have to decide what your religion are. there was a time when the government decided the major religion. but we do not believe in a theocracy. we should not be domineering. people understand this pretty well. you can pick and choose your intellectual material. but so often, what we have done is that anything we want if we are expected to deal with this, what army raising it for our own bodies and making the are of an decisions? -- making our own decisions ta?
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the encouraging part is that a lot of people are excited about s ome osome of the things we are talking about, where america went wrong, and the greatness of our constitution. we do not have to give up our defense. for you to be safe, you do not have to give up your liberties. that is nonsense. you do not have to give up any liberties to be safe. [cheers and applause] the other warning is that you are going to have to sacrifice. if i can waive the want -- wavw
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e my wand and i give you back your liberties, your life is your own, they give you back your freedom to act as you choose, why is that they sacrifice tax that is not a sacrifice. -- why is that a sacrifice? that is not a sacrifice. that is what you need. there is a lot of excitement going on. i am encouraged next week. i hope everyone comes out and votes. as important as the election is and what we dealt with, and i have been doing this for a long time, interest is growing because we need some answers.
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this is something that is an intellectual fight. we have to know what we want. we have to be convinced that freedom works. we have to be convinced that we cannot depend on others. we have no right to tell other people what to do. if we use that golden rule, we ought to know how to use it on international relationships. if we do not want other countries doing anything to us, we should not do it to them either. because of the crisis that we are facing, there is a lot of independent thinking. people consider themselves belonging to parties. one area is the students.
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they know what liberty is all about. that is what they want. then there is another group. sometimes i forget about them. some people of a older age remember what it was like to have more personal freedom and responsibility. some of them have been about and have dropped out. they have not been interested. they have been stung too many times. there is always a prominent in society no matter how bad the society is. just think how bad it was in communism. they were parts of the remnant that held the trip together --
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that held the truth together. there is a large number of people coming out of the woodwork. they say maybe we see a chance of a real change. it is galvanizing. it is getting exciting. i do not think it will be easy. if we do not put our minds to it and work our way out of this, and we do things like this, it is worth the fight. that would be very bad. that is what i am here. it we do not need the status quo. we need to restore the greatness of america freedom and the wonderful country that we live in. thank you very much.
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candidates and endorsing a ron paul. this is just six days before the iowa caucuses spir. he will be on the radio show tomorrow along with michele bachman. in the afternoon, rick perry will hold a meet and greet at a coffee shop in cedar rapids, iowa. all of this is live here on c- span tomorrow. >> with the iowa caucuses tuesday, we're following candidates throughout the state.
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political guess are taking your calls on a washington journal program. it can also stay up-to-date with the campaign 2012 upset with new features including candidates on the campaign trail. this led to see what the candidates have said on issues important to you and a social media buzz. learn what people like you are saying on sites like facebook and twitter. span.org/ at c- campaign2012. >> michele bachman spent the day meeting voters. >> to go around in shake your ham with you. -- she will go around in shake your hand with you.
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>> good to me you. you are so nice to open your place up so we can come in. what is your name? >> brick. >> high. it is good to me you. -- hi. it is good to meet yo u. u. it is good to see you. what is your name? hello. thank you. >> we're the only candidate doing it. you did all right. meet you.od to
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♪ i've been everywhere, man. ♪ >> for more on the republican race. here is 10 minutes of tonight newscast from des moines. >> from i was news leader comment this is news channel 8. >> they are here. today are there. they are everywhere. but the campaign stops did not happen by accident. we take a look at the planning it takes to create a media event over and over again. >> what happens when occupy with
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demonstrators take on mitt romney's campaign. good evening. after months of campaigning, the caucuses are anyone's to win. >> they show no clear front runner. they just released a report emphasizes this fact. ron paul has 22%. the biggest surprise is rick santorum with 16%. rick perry follows a behind with 11%. jon huntsman receives only 1%. >> they headed east trying to persuade voeteters there. we caught five of the candidates as they try to cram in as many campaign appearances. >> a busy afternoon at the good eats.
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it was made even busier by the arrival of the candidates for president. >> before her arrival, we met twins. >> it was pretty done impressive for me. i am undecided yet. i am looking to hear form a good conservative rep. >> we need a strong one in to turn the country around, right? >> i do not know what she's going to do differently. we have let the people in the past. we have seen no change. >> i was very impressed with what she had to say. the questions that i was most concerned about, i was impressed with their answers. >> i can hold obama accountable
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and make him a one-term president. >> i am going to have to give it a lot of thought. my concern will be who would be her running mate. >> it is not just for a republican but the conservative candidates who believes and not dictated by what is politically popular. what they saw in me a person that has a court conviction. i am a solid conservative. i think i ones will come back to their first love. i think they will choose me. >> that cancer every hope she can repeat her success -- that gives her every hopes again repeat her success spiri. >> one said she is leaning toward bachman. bachman's plan to visit the
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counties, she has 11 to go. blacks mitt romney spent the day campaigning in eastern iowa. romney says the skyrocketing deficit is causing major problems now. we will not be the only ones forced to deal with the problem. >> i think it is immoral for us to keep spending money we do not add a passing on to our kids the obligations. >> we cannot go on like this. in the past, we have said what i just mentioned. wrong for our kids to pick of these bills. we will just crush them. >> newt gingrich was the front- runner a few weeks ago. he has fallen to fourth now.
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he admits that weeks in negative ads have not done some of the support. he does not want it to degenerate. but i think we have enough trouble that we ought to have a campaign a positive ideas and solutions. the only person that benefits a negative ads is barack obama. since his announcement yesterday about a change of heart on abortion has moved today. rick perry used to be against abortion. it now he says he opposes it in all circumstances. he told an audience that a dvd helped change his mind. >> you are seeing a transformation. >> what was that transformation? >> it is a lie.
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i started giving some thought about the issue of rape and. it is some powerful stories. >> coming up, governor perry stops beside the home of an undecided voter. it was 90 minutes of issues. will see this only here at 10:00. >> tonight, we take you behind the scenes of one ron paul stopped to unveil a traveling road show that involves the media, memorabilia, and a lot of moments. >> an hour before the candidates are right, they are tuned in in the cables have been strong. to it is prime time for a missouri souvenir salesmen. >> the ones that have shown that
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now are the ones that are really excited about their candidates. >> supporters. >> ron paul has been a run for a while. >> they got a great seat. they already had company. >> seeing all these people, it is overwhelming. it is. this is iowa. >> this turns into a stream. fox news is already live. microphones are working the crowds. they know the deadline is better than their home towns. >> i literally do not have an address. >> he is entering folks in the front row for the evening news. he has heard the upcoming speech before. this close to the caucuses, campaigns and an exchange by the hour. >> you have to pay close attention. it is not just a set speech. >> minutes before the candidate walked in, at 15 tvs are running.
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200 voters are ready to be sold. quite they're making a final decision. they are getting serious about it. it is good. >> congressmen ron paul. >> his speech begins. >> it does look like there are more cameras and there used to be. >> 45 minutes of the candidates and then the crowd starts to disappear. this is crunch time. >> it is not getting much sleep. correct the next stop stars in an hour. channel 8, i would news. already had one in west des moines. >> not every campaign event is scripted by candidates. seven members of occupy iowa
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were arrested when they try to get inside romney's campaign headquarters. police say the rest happens. >> some processors in not land in jail. if they turn their attention to a wells fargo bank branch. they want wells fargo to disclose the tax that is, as saying the bank does not pay its fair share of taxes. republican candidates were baffling themselves. obama is getting ready to face whoever it is who comes out on top. he helped mourn and 1200's events to train volunteers. -- helped train more than two well hundred events to train volunteers. >> this is kcci news channel 6.
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we are proud to be the news leader. >> the national media settles into des moines. the spotlight is on iowa. they're all set up production in the capital city. >> they show us how they are getting ready. the majority of candidates are in iowa. to the staffers are, too. the trucks are parked. as engineers laid this, correspondence hit the streets. cbs covered the event. many of the national news stations will host programs.
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they have to be built. audio and mighting have to be protected. they will be producing shows from the state house. cnn is that the judicial building. cbs news will run the production. >> we took over the old hospital. >> the production manager said the start of more than a year ago. >> when you walk into the room and there is nothing here, you have to run all the data and cables. >> hundreds of hours of labor have gone into setting up this control room. this is where outgoing decisions will be made for cbs news. he says there will be few hours of sleep leading up to the caucuses and a lot more work has to be done.
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>> it is a lot of fun. >> kcci news. >> coming of next on c-span, "the contenders" looks at the 1964 presidential campaign. then campaign appearances by newt gingrich and michele bachman. on tomorrows "washington journal" the communications director and the republican. >> and nelson is retiring. he is not running for reelection he talked about his
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retirement yesterday. >> there is more that needs to be done to keep america strong. while i relished the opportunity, i also feel it is time for me to step away from elected office, spend more time with my family, and look for new ways to serve our state and nation. >> after 20 years, first as governor and then senator, then at nelson announced his retirement tuesday. what his appearances dating back to 1991 archived and searchable on line at the c-span video library.
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>> wherever he goes, he speaks out on the issues. he answers exactly where he stands on domestic and foreign policy. everywhere he goes, people are responding with enthusiasm for this new and different kind of statement. barry goldwater has been constantly on the go. it is a grueling schedule. whenever he can, he catches a quick nap, here with his daughter peggy. and with his wife peggy. but soon it is back to the campaign where barry goldwater is calling for courage and integrity and meeting problems. he is calling for an end to do- nothing policies. he is calling for a rebirth of individual freedom. >> we base our reliance on freedom, upon the free enterprise system. we reject, therefore, the ideas of the economic planners in washington, that a group of people sitting in washington can plan on what the country is going to make, where it is going to be made, the quality of the product, the price of the product, the wages to be paid, the profits to be made, etc., etc. in simpler terms, this is called socialism. it has never worked in the history of the earth.
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it is not working today in countries where it has been tried. >> republican presidential candidates barry goldwater campaigning in 1964. c-span's "the contenders" coming to you from the goldwater institute in phoenix, arizona. we look at his political influence during the second half of the 20th century. we welcome you tonight and our audience at the goldwater institute and our three guests who will walk us through the life and political career of barry goldwater beginning with rick perlstein. he is the author of the bestselling book, "barry goldwater -- before the storm." he has written for "the nation," and is also the author of the book "nixonland." also, dorothy olsen. her editorials have appeared in "the washington journal", "usa today," and "the national review."
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bill mccune served two terms to the state legislature, including one term in the senate. he grew up here in arizona. he has produced 90 documentaries including "barry goldwater -- an american life." thank you for being with us. rick pearlstein, let's begin with you. he called himself a different kind of a candidate for a different kind of an election year. how so? >> i think the thing that made him most different is that he was a reluctant presidential candidate. if we think about all of the people running for president in 2012, we cannot say any of them are reluctant. it is a full-time job. it is consuming. ever since 1960 when the first group of people came to barry goldwater and tried to draft him and said we want you to be a presidential candidate, he would say that is the last thing on my mind. i don't want to run for president. he once even said i do not have the brains to be president. [laughter] over and over again, they said
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we don't care. we are going to draft you. that is what happened. he pretty much was drafted by incredibly vociferous, passionate followers to raise money and build an organization on his own. >> we will talk about this later. the assassination of john kennedy. how did that influence his decision to go ahead in 1964? >> he was inching toward doing it in the fall of 1963. one of the reasons was president kennedy had introduced a civil rights bill that was beginning to build a strong backlash. there were people talking about president kennedy being vulnerable in 1964. goldwater was close to kennedy and he liked kennedy. when john kennedy was assassinated, it is hard to reconstruct the context in our minds. it was so harrowing for the american people. people blamed extremism. people blamed the ideological politics that americans did not
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want to believe as part of their political system. barry goldwater immediately lost interest. in fact, it was another month and a half before he answered the call of one more group of people coming to him and begging him saying it was his duty to support the conservative cause, that he finally agreed to do it. >> "the conscience of a conservative" was the manifesto of why he was running, the ideology that shaped him. in the piece of film we showed you, he talked about freedom and free enterprise and the failed socialist experiment that democrats were pushing in the 1960's. >> barry goldwater stood for one thing. he was very clear about it. that was freedom. that book today is just as relevant as it was when it was written 50 years ago. barry goldwater would say, "circumstances change, principles do not." when he was getting ready to run for office, he said, "as i survey the landscape and look
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at the questions that might occur to me, the most important concern that i will have -- the most important question i will ask myself is, are we maximizing freedom?" that was the beginning and the end of his political analysis. >> take us back to 1964 and walk us through barry goldwater in the u.s. senate for two terms. what led him to this point on the national stage? >> really in a sense the simplicity of his perspective. simplicity as compared to more complicated politics. we have to go back. you have to look at barry goldwater in the context of his times. his family came here in the 1850's. he grew up in dusty little phoenix that had 8000 people or 9000 people at the time.
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life was more simple here than it was in the east. >> arizona was not even a state. >> when he was born it was not a state for two or three more years. but his lifestyle -- this was part of the old west at that time. it was not new york city and whatever. you have to look at barry goldwater from his family history, it meant a lot to him. up until world war ii, what was life like here? it was very simple. it was very unsophisticated. it was black and white. it was right and wrong. it was the old west. it was not the sophisticated east coast. i bring that up because that is what shapes -- where did he get these views which i call small l libertarian. the very simple views about right and wrong and this and that. it was the context in which he grew up. you ask me a question but i
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cannot remember what the question was. [laughter] >> what led us to 1964, and what shaped his ideology in the 1950's? >> it was truthfully what i just said. it was simple. i do not mean that in a negative way. it was sort of simple. there was right and wrong. there was good and bad and this and that and the other. you get into world war ii which he served in. remember, world war ii was the major good versus bad thing. and we get into the cold war and us with the soviet union. all of these things from barry goldwater's perspective were pretty black and white -- especially compared to today's politics where you don't know quite who is doing what to whom. he was the personification of good versus bad, right versus wrong, whether you agree with him or not. he was the personification of that.
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i think that had a lot of appeal by the time the 1950's and certainly 1964 came about. >> i'm going to come back later and ask you about your impressions of him. rick pearlstein, let's focus on the 1964 race. you had other names in the race like governor scranton of pennsylvania who was in and out and then in again. nelson rockefeller spent a lot of money to try to secure the nomination. walk us through how these candidates challenged barry goldwater and ultimately how he got the nomination. >> the republican party was a different institution then it is now. it was controlled by moderates and even liberals. the entire ideology of the party system was different. each party had in it both conservatives and liberals. the democratic party had very conservative members in the south and liberals in the north. the republicans had a isolationist conservative wing from the midwest and a liberal
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wing from the northeast. people like -- what the barry goldwater campaign was all about was trying to take over the party from the bottom up -- the bottom up being these conservative ideological activists. we talk about the bottom-up, but they had their meetings and country clubs and very fancy places. it was presumed that someone like nelson rockefeller was the heir apparent for the republican nomination. the idea that a conservative could have won the nomination was absolutely seen as impossible by the pundits. the pundits then said that america was a liberal center- left consensus. when dwight eisenhower not only embraced the new deal but even expanded it, opening up something like the department of health, education, and welfare. instituting the interstate, a
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huge federal outlay. it was just presumed that the conservatism of the 1920's, which was seen as something that have gotten us into the depression, was no longer relevant to modern life. >> in your book, you point out two key primaries that were critical in 1964. oregon which nelson rockefeller won and california which barry goldwater won. >> california was an absolutely fascinating knock-down drag-out political fight. i talked earlier about how barry goldwater had these impassioned supporters who would do whatever they want even if barry goldwater told them not to do it. these are people from groups like the john birch society. some were segregationists. they were considered far right, as they were called at times, extremists. they were basically willing to knock on doors until their knuckles were bloody.
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they were willing to sabotage other campaigns. it was seen as the fight for civilization itself. because the other candidates -- the liberal candidates were seen as these sort of harbingers of the socialism that they believed was destroying civilization itself. it was incredibly impassioned. >> two years after richard nixon lost his governorship, he was still a player in the republican party in 1964. according to your book, he was trying to figure out a way the party might turn to him if they did not want rockefeller or barry goldwater. >> you mention the oregon primary. he established a secret boiler room in which people were hired -- yes, richard nixon -- in which people were hired to make phone calls to voters saying, would it not be a neat idea if richard nixon was drafted to be president? [laughter] yes, this is richard nixon we are talking about. someone found out about it. a camera crew showed up. richard nixon was scheming and
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he was always hoping that barry goldwater and rockefeller would knock each other out. there was a cartoon that showed them having a shootout in the middle of an old western town. richard nixon was rubbing his hands in "richard nixon's political undertaker's parlor." [laughter] >> we as always want to hear from you. our phone lines are open. the telephone numbers are on the screen. we also will get questions from the audience. we will show you political ads from 1964. you remember this campaign. how did lyndon johnson run against barry goldwater? what was his tactic? >> rottenness. he ran a very smart campaign. he made barry goldwater the
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issue as opposed to the issues being the issue. barry goldwater was painted as a crazy person. there were things put out by the johnson campaign that some groups of psychiatrists in america came out with a statement that barry goldwater was mentally ill. some of you probably remember that. and then there was the "10, 9, 8, 7" -- the nuclear bomb commercial which only aired one time. it got a lot of attention. it was designed by bill moyers, actually. it was a totally "do the guy in" kind of campaign. >> it is important to realize the nuclear stuff did not come out of nowhere. in "conscience of a conservative," he made a strong
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argument that a craven fear of death had crept into the american psyche. people were so afraid of nuclear war that they did not want to confront the soviet union. there was a good reason people were afraid to confront the soviet union -- all out war would have meant the end of civilization itself. it freaked people out that if we are afraid of going to war with the soviet union, we are on a path to surrender. that was a genuinely frightening notion, especially after the cuban missile crisis when people came within hours of armageddon itself, so they thought. he did have some very unconventional ideas about the necessity of confronting the soviet union head-on militarily. >> we will talk a little later on about the iconic daisy ad. we have put together some 1964 ads to get a sense of the issues and personality of that
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campaign. [phone buzzing] >> this particular phone only rings in a serious crisis. leave it in the hands of a man who has proven himself responsible. vote for president johnson on november 3. >> the people ask barry goldwater. >> i have a question for mr. goldwater. i am cynthia ford. we keep hearing about hot wars, cold war, and brushfire wars. i have an older brother who is serving in the armed forces. i want to know what he will do to keep us out of a war. >> let me assure you here and now, i have said that in every corner of the land and i will continue to say it, a goldwater-miller administration will mean once more the present policy of strength through peace that was the hallmark of the eisenhower administration.
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it served the cause of freedom and avoided the war during the last republican administration. it will do so again. we are the party of preparedness and the party of peace. >> in your heart, you know he is right. vote for barry goldwater. >> on october 24, 1963, barry goldwater said the nuclear bomb is merely another weapon. merely another weapon? vote for president johnson. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> graft! swindle! juvenile delinquency! crime! riots! hear what barry goldwater has to say about our lack of moral
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leadership. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear challenge to go to work effectively and go to work immediately to restore proper respect for law and order in this land and not just prior to election day either. america's greatness is the greatness of her people. let this generation make a new market for that greatness. let this generation set a standard of responsibility that will inspire the world. >> in your heart, you know he is right. vote for barry goldwater. >> dorothy olson is the president of this institute. as you look back at those campaign ads from 1964, your reaction? >> a lot of different thoughts come to mind when i see that array including how many of these commercials inspired modern-day political commercials. what i take away is the slogan "in your heart, you know he is
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right." i think the american people proved that 15 years later when they elected ronald reagan when he campaigned on an identical platform but with different packaging and a little bit more gloss. this messaging -- you were talking about the soviet union and how barry goldwater had too much bravado and it was scaring people. that is what ronald reagan ran on and won with. it was exactly the right public policy to pursue then. i think that speaks a lot about the timing and what is happening socially when you are campaigning and how important that is and how it influences whether or not you get through with your ideas. >> two very different approaches. tony schwartz was behind a lot of the lyndon johnson ads. a different tactic by the goldwater campaign. >> i think about how embarrassingly atrocious they were. the barry goldwater team were not very professional for all
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kinds of interesting reasons. barry goldwater wanted to have people around him he felt comfortable with. he hired his arizona friends who were not national political professionals. the lyndon johnson advertisements were made a most sophisticated advertising agency. they produced one of barry goldwater's ads which was goldwater talking to eisenhower. it was a total bust. they said i will never give to this campaign again. this guy's name was chuck lichtenstein. he has passed away. i asked him about it. he said i never had a lot of experience with tv. you mean you had never produced a tv commercial? he said he never watched tv. [laughter] that was the barry goldwater campaign. >> we are going to be showing during the course of this evening some of the documentary that you have put together -- some of the original work. you worked with barry goldwater
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how long to get this put together? >> i think specifically on the project, probably six months. >> was there one thing you did not know about barry goldwater and his politics that you learned in putting this together? >> his language. [laughter] >> elaborate. >> he has a very colorful language. i was going to tell a story, but i really have to clean it up. i will tell the story. i will clean it up. one of the last times i was with him, i walked into his living room and he was sitting in an barca lounger watching tv. i said, how are you doing? he looked at me and said -- here is the cleaned-up part -- the effing" raccoons are effing in my fireplace. i said what? people did not know but we have raccoons in the desert. i did not even know until that day, actually.
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a mother raccoon had climbed up on his roof and come down the chimney. what do you call the thing in the fireplace? the grate. she gave birth to a litter of raccoons. this was not in his home, it was in the ham radio shack he had built next door. the raccoons were doing their business, so to speak, in the fireplace. that was his comment. "the effing raccoons are effing in my fireplace." [laughter] >> on that note, let's go to martin from texas, as we look at the life and career of barry goldwater and his 1964 presidential bid. good evening, martin. >> good evening. the reason i am calling in on veterans day. i happen to be a retired naval captain, civil engineer corps, from illinois. i like to tell my friends not so much the history of how many
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times i met barry goldwater accidentally but i was first influenced being a democratic young man from illinois where my cousin became the supreme court justice, head of state of illinois, attorney-general. i will not go on. it was a world war ii texas a&m colonel in the air force -- excuse me, army, and later air force that influenced me to vote for barry goldwater. interestingly enough, i like to say to my texas friends, i am one of the few guys left that remembers on monday hearing fdr "day of infamy" speech. i ran into barry goldwater a couple of times in a little restaurant that he loved on connecticut avenue. one time i was there, my boss who happened to be a civilian world war ii pilot, i introduced barry goldwater to my boss.
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my boss said, why did you introduce me to the senator? i said, he knows another robert t. stafford. he got such a kick out of this. "how long have you known barry goldwater?" i said i have only met him a couple of times in the restaurant. anyway, the man was a fantastic individual. the only time i went to the senate was when barry goldwater was presiding. this guy was a beautiful man. one last memory is, i went to wright patterson air force base, happen to be going there on business. i was a civil engineer. my wife and young son were there. i said, why don't you go down to the museum. that was the day barry goldwater and jimmy stewart dedicated the first wing of the museum. they both came by and shook hands with my wife and son.
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i wished i had had that experience to meet the other brigadier general jimmy stewart. anyway, i wanted to share that. what a wonderful man he was. >> thank you for the call. he was a pilot. he was a ham radio operator. he had a lot of hobbies. he took a lot of pictures. >> it is important to recognize that a lot of powerful rich people, which is what barry goldwater was, used their power to get out of military service. he pulled strings to get into the military. he was a pretty old guy. he took on duty in a very dangerous air route in the china-burma theater. they called it the aluminum trail because so many planes went down. he has this fascination with flying the latest military hardware. one time in 1964 he had this
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very sensitive meeting with lyndon johnson and about how they would handle the issue of race riots. london johnson spent hours of preparing. there was an entire memo that was going to guide his incredibly delicate negotiations. the meeting lasted 15 seconds and then barry goldwater was like, when do i get to try this new a-11 that is coming out? >> let's go back to the 1964 campaign. it was a landslide for lyndon johnson. 38% of the vote. why such a disparity? was barry goldwater misunderstood in the campaign? >> a lot of reasons. first of all, people were terrified of the prospect of nuclear war. that he never really back down from. people -- lyndon johnson was dishonest on issues like vietnam. he said he was not going to send american boys 7,000 miles away. there was a bumper sticker that showed up the next year and it said -- i was told if i voted
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for barry goldwater, there would be a war in vietnam. i voted for barry goldwater, and there was. his ideological time had not come. also, i mentioned the atrocious campaign he ran. i found a memo that inspired the -- they fired the research staff. i found a formal letter they sent out to political science professors and every state. it said, dear proffesor, please send us any books or pamphlets about the political situation in, and then it read "insert state here." this was not a professional operation. >> we are welcoming questions from the audience here at the goldwater institute. here's one from up front. >> i am a retired cpa. i have lived in central phoenix for 53 years. as a person who knew barry goldwater and worked with him in the community, i knew him to be a man of impeccable integrity and who is dedicated
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to the proposition of personal responsibility. when he ran for president, it seemed to me from my perspective that the pundits you mentioned earlier went out of their way to print and broadcast atrocious and dishonest statements about him. there is a national magazine to this day i do not take because of the things they said about barry goldwater that were outright untrue. my question is, why did the national press and so many prominent people go out of their way to be so vindictive against a man who based upon what has already been said was going to lose? >> i would say a couple of things. a lot of his followers were very frightened. you can charge that to barry goldwater or you can say that was not his fault.
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he did not like to distance himself from people who were devoted to him. you also have to understand the context of the times. fascism and nazism was a living memory for just about every adult. the idea of people getting together with such rage against liberals. when barry goldwater did a very famous speech at the 1960 convention in which he said, conservatives, let's grow up. we can get this party back. he said we need to defeat the democrats working for the destruction of this nation. passions were very high. political passions of that intensity, of that magnitude were greatly feared. in an exaggerated way, and he was kind of caught up in that in an unfair way. had to deal with the context of the belief that if people were allowed to have rein in the political system, we would not be able to control the
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consequences. this was a time, of course, of civil rights terrorism in places like mississippi. people were burning down churches. people were assassinating civil rights workers. people were saying why is it in a place like mississippi, where all of this stuff is going on and the sheriffs were not arresting these people, which was voting 87% for barry goldwater? >> the 1964 debate and civil rights bill, a key part of the process we will talk about that. he did vote against it. we'll go to george joining us from manassas, virginia. welcome to "the contenders" program and our look at barry goldwater. >> thank you very much. thanks for doing this show. my parents volunteered for barry goldwater. they firmly believed in the ideals and what the man said. my question to y'all was he more of a libertarian? or more of a conservative? there is a difference if you look at it.
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>> dr. olson? >> well, you're right in it there with that question. his book was called "the conscience of a conservative." he felt like he was a conservative, that he was a true conservative who understood that this nation was founded on the concept of constitutionally limited government, and that was true in all spheres of life, that you couldn't pick and choose where you would have government involvement. if it wasn't in the constitution, then it wasn't constitutional and therefore the government shouldn't be involved. so today, i mean there are a lot of libertarians that wear that mantle. a lot of different folk miss the tea party movement and candidates for president. i won't be the one to define him as a libertarian or
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conservative. he used the term conservative, and i think that what he stood for was as close to what the founding fathers stood for as any prominent person in our history. >> this book, what personality came through from barry goldwater? what did you learn how to who he was as a person? >> i think what people have been saying, that he was a guy who shot from the hip and he didn't care what people thought of him. you know, much to his detriment often. people talk about him as an honorable man. i think he was an honorable man. but by the same token, i think ideologically he could be very naive. so i mentioned the civil rights terrorism that was going on in mississippi. the fact that people were being shot in cold blood for doing things like helping people register to vote. he never denounced that.
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he said his appeal to people of the south was i'm not going to as an arizonan tell people in mississippi what they should do. when civil rights are being that egregiously violated, i think there's a kind of "which side are you on" question. so i think that his heart was in the right place. he believed he was doing the right thing. but i think he had a certain myopia when it came to a real ordeal that he avoided at that time. >> we have put together -- but go ahead. >> i want to talk about the libertarian conservative. you have to look in the context of his time. i wouldn't be surprised if during his life, and certainly while he was in the senate, he probably never heard the word libertarian. that wasn't even a word. -- that was not heard of at the time.
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i call him a small l libertarian, because he basically believed in freedom of choice as he came later in his career after politics. he was outspoken in favor of gay rights. a woman's right to choose. all sorts of things like that. and some of my friends would say "oh, goldwater went senile and he became a big liberal in the end, he changed." he didn't change. his philosophy was always -- it's up to you as an individual to have the right to decide, whether it was about gay rights or abortion rights or labor unions, the whole thing from the 1950's where he's totally misunderstood, i might note. he was a small l libertarian. today we have, you know, all sorts of politicians and presidential hopefuls running around talking about libertarian, libertarian this and that. you have to keep that in the context of the times.
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>> you've done a perfect job of setting up this next piece. the video we want to share with our audience. to give you a sense of the personality and style of barry goldwater. >> he talks so fast. you know, sitting there trying to listen to you reminds me of trying to read "playboy" magazine with my wife turning the pages. [laughter] >> i happen to think i'm in a pretty tough race. i'm spending the money that i legally can. that's the answer. in fact, it's a stupid question, if you don't mind my saying so. >> i'll read the record. >> i never said that airplane wouldn't fly. >> you said you wouldn't. >> people all over the country keep talking about legalized gambling.
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and i thought we already had it. it's called election day. [applause] >> i now realize what it takes to be a president. it helps to have a brother who sits at the gas station drinking beer all day. when i was campaigning in that razor-thin election in 1964, i should have told everyone that dean was my brother. [laughter] >> you wanted to jump in earlier. >> he actually pioneered what would become social conservatism. he gave a very sharp speech about the moral decay of the nation. it was at the mormon tabernacle
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in salt lake city. but he also used some of that salty language that we need to censor when he referred to the christian right. jerry falwell said in 1981 that all good christians should be very concerned about sandra day o'connor. if i may, he said all good christians should kick jerry falwell in the ass. >> paul, you're on. >> i was just curious to know what your panel thinks. how would he have handled vietnam differently than lyndon johnson did? would he have escalated the war, or would he have seen it as a civil war between the north and south vietnamese?
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>> thanks for the question. >> whether he would have been successful or not, i don't know. but i was of that generation. vietnam war under lyndon johnson was gradualism. we're going to tighten the screw and eventually they're going to give up. yeah right. i think if barry had been president, and i'm not saying it would have been a good move or a bad move. i'm not sure. but i think he would have come in with with what later became the colin powell doctrine. if you're going to go to war, you have to go with the attitude that you want to win it in the next hour. that's his attitude. then he said we lost the war in vietnam for one reason.
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the politicians tried to run the war. in his quote. and politicians don't know their ass from a hot rock about running a war. that was his quote. i think he would have taken a far more aggressive approach to it, as compared to johnson's gradualism, which dragged out almost as long as our current wars. >> what kind of a president would he have been? dorothy olson. >> barry would have been something we don't see too often today. i think he would have been a very honest president. i think he would have been very candid as he was his whole life. that was the way he campaigned how he was after office. i think that candor is something that people loved about barry goldwater and it's one of the reasons that so many people sought out barry goldwater, even after he was in office and he was so well-
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respected and liked by so many people. because you knew with barry goldwater where you stood. he always put his principles first. he kind of had a tin ear to sometimes messaging and what people might think. and he put his principles before partisanship, before party, before politics. it's hard to say whether he would have been able to work with congress that way. but it's an exercise that i would have liked to have seen. >> we are in week 10 of "the contenders" series. we are in the goldwater institute in phoenix, arizona. we have an audience here as well. we'll get another question right up front. >> thank you. kevin lane from prescott, arizona. i recall barry was interviewed in the 1980's when russia had just gone into afghanistan. i think this shows how prescient he was on many issues.
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his quote was he had been in those hills and a right-minded goat would not wander into those hills. he forecasted that russia would lose. and obviously, we're quite bogged down in afghanistan. so my question to the panel is maybe some other examples of his wisdom in his life as far as being ahead of his time. >> you're shaking your head. >> i think that is a great question and goes back to what kind of a president would he have been, and one of the things we know he would have done differently is he would not have vastly expanded the welfare state in america. he was fighting against that. he said there were all kinds of federal programs that were unconstitutional that needed to be repealed. he was unabashed about that. he certainly did not agree with the levels of taxation that we had then, let alone the levels of taxation that we have now. he was very against the type of progressive taxation that was put into place and has become
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more and more predominant. he felt like taxation should be minimal and fair per person, so if you give 10%, i give 10%. rick gives 10%. or rick as a wealthy person is going to pay 90%, you're not going to pay anything. so those are some major differences. also, since that time, and certainly lyndon johnson worked on this as well, but this vast expansion of government into all of these social arenas, including education, for which there is no constitutional authority. all of those things are things that barry goldwater would have fought hard against. >> let's go back to where your book begins and talk about his influence here in arizona as he tried to build the republican party in the late 1940's. >> it's a fascinating story. it was a democratic state. when he ran for the senate, i think that there were 92 members of the lower house. it might have been 96, and two
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of them were democratic. he came from a republican family, his mom was a midwesterner. she was a republican. also, for the new defense industries that were opening up in arizona. >> and before he entered politics, he did what? >> he was an executive at the family department store. he was actually, interestingly enough, we talk about him being a straight-shooting guy. he was actually the marketing guy for the department store. but he -- a guy named eugene polian moved to phoenix and he was a newspaper publisher. he was actually dan quayle's father-in-law, and he really wanted to help build a republican party, and also build a nonpartisan city government to build up what was a corrupt town. barry goldwater was involved in both. in 1950, he was the campaign manager for a guy named howard pyle, who ran for governor, and being barry goldwater, he flew
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howard pyle around the state in his plane. he would descend like a bronze god to these little towns and people would say wow, which one's the candidate? but here's the thing. when he ran for senate, he decided that he would run for senate by building a republican party. so he recruited people for every office in the state. someone said why are you qualified to run for senate in arizona? he was such a first citizen of arizona, his answer was, i can call 10,000 people in the state by their first name. he built the republican party in arizona. >> and i'm going to call on you for just a moment, because you remember going to the goldwater department store. >> correct. when i first came to arizona in 1970, i worked for the old adams hotel, which was in downtown, and i bought a bathing suit at the goldwater department store on central avenue. and at the time, you talk about him being in marketing, they gave you with every purchase a little vial of water that has
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gold flakes in it. and everybody that had flown in from texas, when i went back to the hotel, all ran down and bought a bathing suit so they could get a vial of water with gold flakes in it. so he was good at marketing. >> i just wanted to comment about the 1952 election. barry ran against ernest mcfarland, the majority leader of the united states senate at that time. barry had supported mcfarland in earlier elections. he raised money for him and all that. barry didn't like or was upset with harry truman, which is ironic today because what former president was barry most like? harry truman, actually -- give 'em hell harry. but barry told me many times, he says i ran for president, i knew i didn't have a chance in hell of winning.
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but even in the senate, he didn't think he had a chance of winning that 1952 senate race. at all. so maybe he was building a republican party. he had been on the city council for two years and then he sort of decided to run against harry truman in most senses. but he didn't. he was not some big political organizer who said let's build a republican party here. it was sort of natural. but it wasn't like he had some big plan to do that. he was just running thinking he didn't have a chance in hell of winning. >> well, we came across some early film of senator-elect barry goldwater after he was elected to the senate, but before coming to washington, d.c. let's look. >> speaking of washington, where you're going, there is a great deal of talk on the part of the republicans doing the campaign about communism in washington and the mess in washington. do you anticipate finding
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anything like that when you take your seat in the senate? >> well, i don't know. i can't say. i think that there must be communism in washington, but i would hate to stand up and say there is without knowing more about it. >> let me put it this way, is there any fear or concern about communism and about the so called mess in washington among the people who voted for you out in arizona? >> i think the fear of communism is one of the underlying reasons for the success of the republican party in this election, all over the country. >> now that the republican party is in, do you think there will be any letting down of this concern, any complacency on the part of the people who voted for you? >> i think there's already happened. >> in what way? >> i am amazed to walk around new york to find in my own communities -- well, general eisenhower has been elected. the new deal has been thrown out. we can go back to our work the same as usual. and as always happens in
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politics, the man who benefits the most from good government goes on with the least interest in it, and that's mr. average citizen. >> are you going to do anything to point out the need for continuing concern over the situation in washington? >> i'll never be quiet about it. >> from 1952, never be quiet, that became his mantra as senator and candidate in 1964. who helped him win the 1952 race? >> he had a very slick operator, a name familiar to arizona in steven shadic. mostsn't necessarily the savory guy. he once wrote a book on "how to win an election." he said he adopted the tactics of mao tse tung. he would do things like -- they sent out 50,000 postcards all hand signed by volunteers from barry. he would do things like -- he said if the situation is right, you can get millions of people to vote for someone who has the
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absolute opposite ideology that they do. so he was a very tough campaign manager. >> we have a question here in the audience. please introduce yourself and go ahead. >> good evening. my name is richard muser. i was 16 months old when we moved to arizona, so i claim to be a native. it's a pleasure to hear the information about senator goldwater from so many experts. the reason i am here is because in the second grade, i met a gentleman named bill mccune and we have been friends since then. in 1964, i was a lowly specialist fourth class in the army in fort benning, georgia. i wasn't old enough to vote at that time because arizona was 21 and i was only 20. when i listened to the senator discuss using low yield nuclear
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weapons in vietnam, it made sense to me as a military person, and it made sense to a lot of my fellow soldiers at the same time. the point that the johnson campaign exaggerated, the impact of using these huge hiroshima bombs was a total exaggeration. he was an air force man. he knew what low yield meant and what it would do. and my question is what was wrong with the term low yield that i believe i only heard it once or twice. >> rick, you wrote about that in the book. >> yeah, i actually talked to one of the physicists that designed some of those low yield nuclear weapons. he said it was absolutely insane to believe that you
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could contain the explosions from those weapons. so i'm not so sure that it's true. >> i want to comment, only because dick muser brought this up. we grew up in the same neighborhood over by 25th drive north of thomas road. in about 1950 through 1954, that period, my father would wake me and my brothers up at 4:00 in the morning on a couple of occasions. we would go up on to the roof of our house and sit facing north. my dad had his watch and he would tell us there's one minute, 30 seconds. and we would see nuclear atomic bombs explode at the test sites aboveground, nuclear bombs exploding on the test sites in nevada, which was, what, 300 miles away. i mean, four or five times, i thought -- i'm one of the few
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people alive today who's ever seen a nuclear bomb explode. maybe some of you have, too. hopefully nobody else ever will again. but this was a ritual, we'd watch the nuclear bombs going off in nevada. the point is, i thought why are we dropping nuclear bombs on nevada? i thought they were on our side. [laughter] but realizing that whether it was 250 or 300 miles away to those test sites. it would light up. it's like summer flash lightning, if you know what that means, except that the light would stay in the air longer than summer lightning. wow, that's 300 miles away. think about that. that kind of thing is what contributes to the great fear of the soviet union and nuclear war. >> let me put a domestic issue on the table. organized labor and the legislative record that senator goldwater had.
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>> extremely important in barry goldwater's rise. of course, arizona became the first right to work state, the circle that he was in, his friends, people like dennis mckitchle, he was the labor lawyer for the big mining company. he argued before the supreme court. the idea that fighting labor power was essential to conservative politics was absolutely part of what barry goldwater was all about. he basically rose to national prominence in the late 1950's on two kind of wings. the first was he gave a speech attacking dwight eisenhower for a big budget, which he called squander bus spending and the siren song of socialism. the other was there was a big labor hearing in the late 1950's run by senator mcclellan.
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and it was meant to take on jimmy hoffa's corruption. barry goldwater kept on interrupting. he would say things like well i would rather have jimmy hoffa stealing my money than walter rutha stealing my freedom. walter reuther was head of the united auto workers, who pioneered like the automatic cost of living increase. he was fighting to make the operations and corporations much more transparent. he was the most political aggressive labor leader in history. by taking on men like walter reuther, businessmen flocked to barry goldwater as their savior. these were the guys, these businessmen were the people who ended up organizing the group that, under barry goldwater's nose without him being involved at all, put together "conscience of a conservative" and first put him forward as a presidential candidate. >> can i disagree with what he said?
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>> sure. >> you can always disagree with what i said. >> my experience with barry and interviewing him, he wasn't -- i'm convinced he wasn't against unions. i mean, the small l libertarian thing. he said many times in our shows, to join a union or not join a union, it's their personal choice. he was most vociferous about corruption in the unions and he really didn't like the -- what do you call it? the closed shop, where you had to join a union in order to have a job. >> he liked weak unions. >> well -- that is your view. >> i'll build on what you're saying there. i think that's absolutely correct. >> rick, it's 2-1. [laughter] >> he believed that unions were an expression of human freedom if you joined them voluntary. he believed wholeheartedly in freedom of association. he thought that was great if you wanted to join.
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what he didn't believe in is what unionism has become, which is compulsory, forced membership. and that was something that he vehemently opposed. so you have a situation today where they're trying to take away the right to vote by secret ballot when you're forming a union. that was something that he opposed. there was the issue of -- what was his other big issue -- >> right to work. >> yeah, right to work. where they were making membership compulsory and it was a condition of employment, which he said that is against everything we believe in as americans. he fought for right to work laws in the states. but he didn't oppose the idea of associating unions. he opposed this idea of what unions have become, which is forcing people to do things against their will, completely contrary to everything that barry goldwater believed. >> marvin has been waiting. we'll go to him next in los angeles.
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>> thank you for your program. i'm wondering if barry goldwater were alive today with his life span of points of view, could he get the nomination of the republican party? that's the first part of my question. and number two, based on the extreme right wing state of some leaders in arizona politics, as in the election last tuesday where jerry lewis defeated a leader in the senate, how would barry goldwater have stood in the ideas of the current republican party in the state of arizona? thank you very much. >> thank you. so two points. first, could barry goldwater get the nomination today? >> no, because he would have been vetoed by the christian right. i'm looking over some of these quotes. they're stunning. this is what he said in 1981. "can anyone look at the carnage in iran, the bloodshed in northern ireland, and the bombs bursting in lebanon and question the dangers of
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injecting religious issues into the affairs of states?" he believed very firmly by the end of his political career that people who enter politics from a religious motivation are so impassioned and so impervious to compromise that it made the give and take necessary for politics impossible. which is so ironic, because in 1964, "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." that's what he was accused of at the time. but he did come to an extreme firm and extreme passioned notion, he didn't even want pat robertson to run for president in 1988. he thought that was a violation of the separation of church and state. >> let me give with the first sentence in the first chapter of "conscience of a conservative." because barry goldwater said "i have been much concerned that so many people today with conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them." >> yes, this book "conscience
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of a conservative," i think to this day remains the best statement of what it means to be a conservative in this country. he is so clear. and i think earlier on, you had talked about -- you used the word "simple." i think for me, i was thinking principled. that is all i was. not simpleton or simplicity. but it was clean. it was clear. and those principles are beautifully outlined in that book and it is just as good of a read today as it was back in the day. >> as an author and writer, i have to give some credit to the guy who actually wrote the book, which is a fellow named brent bozell. barry goldwater might have read it, but he definitely wasn't involved in the production of the book, which is a fascinating story i tell in my book. >> as he spoke to the delegates at the republican convention,
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which nominated vice president richard nixon. >> as an american who loves this republic and as a member of the senate, i am committed to the republican philosophy and to the republican candidates. it is my belief the people of this land will return a republican administration to office in 1960. [applause] -- >> i might suggest in all seriousness that you and i will not have discharged our full responsibility unless we also return an effective republican congress. i would not imply that our party is the repository of all virtue, that only republicans can see the truth. that only republicans served noble virtues. i must insist that those in control of the democratic party have announced their total commitment to what i regard a
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lopsided side of man and that puts americans and a shameful condition of everlasting dependence on the state. [applause] i have visited the people in the cities, states, and the towns of our nation. i can tell you the men and women face the future with courage. they are eager to accept their responsibilities. they want to do work and sacrifice to defend our freedom. it is our path as delegates of the 1960 republican convention to make certain the republican voter is provided with an opportunity to make a meaningful choice between the two philosophies competing today for acceptance and our world.
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the philosophy of the stomach or the philosophy of the whole man. >> as you watched barry goldwater in 1960, how did that set the stage for his stake in 1964? >> it is the red meat of the conservative movement. he ended his speech by saying, grow up. let's get to work. i think that is the last line of his speech there. he was not, who was that republican guy who ran campaigns the last few years? >> karl rove? >> he was not karl rove and all that type of thing at all. he had feelings of, let's get to work. let's take this back. he had no use for richard
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dixon, especially later. probably no use for rockefeller other than they were probably friendly. he was saying, let's get to work. >> i wrote my senior thesis in 1971 on the treatment of the barry goldwater campaign. i had the good fortune to spend a full day interviewing the office of theodore white in his office of manhattan. he had vivid memories of the weeks he had spent on the campaign trail with barry goldwater in preparation for the 1964 installment of his famous series. he told me he came away with the tour with great admiration for barry goldwater and with contempt for the liberal media he was a part of and what he thought was doing so much to demonize barry goldwater and
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distort the case that barry goldwater was trying to make to the people. he told me barry had tried earnestly to educate people about the dangers of concentrating power. the specific issue that led to his opposition to the civil rights bill that year. white also said that when goldwater came to fear discussing civil rights issues further on the campaign trail might worsen racial tensions, he met with president lyndon johnson and the two agreed to take the issues out of their campaigns. the agreement really cost barry goldwater votes among a lot of middle-class whites. one must think, he told me how dismayed he had been when he got back from new york after his barry goldwater interval. his liberal media friends received him as if he were a jew just to escape from a nazi death camp. he astonished those men are
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saying what a worthy candidates barry goldwater was. i thought you would like to know. >> thank you for your call. >> he know, it is really interesting of the civil-rights issue that barry goldwater did get a bum rap from the media and continues to get one when you hear people talking about his civil rights record and how he did not vote for the civil rights act or he did not speak out enough. really, he must not have had that in his heart. that could not have been further from the truth about to barry goldwater was. in the goldwater department store, they have integrated the store long before anyone else had done that. he really did have a color blind heart. anybody you meet to will tell you that. anybody who met barry goldwater would tell you that. one of the greatest stories that i love about -- that relates to this is -- we do not know if it is true or not. i was talking to his son, but the way it goes is that he went
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to a very fancy golf course in bel air and wanted to play a round of golf. he said, you cannot play here because you are jewish. he responded by saying, you know, i am only half jewish. do you think i can play nine holes? >> let me say something about civil rights real quick. barry goldwater and harry rosenzweig as a city council members integrated the airport in the phoenix which had been segregated before. after world war ii the department of defense asked barry goldwater to organize the arizona air national guard which had not existed before. he said, i will do it on one condition that it is racially integrated. they gave in and said, "fine." in the senate he voted for civil
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rights legislation can -- consistently into the early 60's. the only what he voted against was the final one. he voted against it for one reason and that was because a thing in there called the mrs. murphy law that would have said that if mrs. murphy wants to rent her spare bedroom out, that she could not discriminate. he has a longer history of pro civil rights activity. >> let me ask you about the relationship between barry goldwater and john kennedy. both can to the senate together in 1952. >> they had affection for each other. when barry goldwater was rising in the early 1960's, he was very much compared to john kennedy. this handsome, charismatic guy. there was a famous store they talked about campaigning together and writing the same campaign trail and debating each other lincoln and douglas style. this is often taken as a
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testament of this old civil time. i suspect that john kennedy was speaking cynically and thinking if he could get this guy on a platform and forced into mouth his what were then unpopular views, i can wipe the floor with him. >> history changed in dallas on november 22, 1963 following the assassination of president kennedy. senator barry goldwater said this. >> he was a very decent fellow. he is the kind of an antagonist that i have always enjoyed. he would fight like a wildcat for his points and his principles. there was never anything personal about it. i imagine that i have debated the president more on the floor of the senate than any other man. it never affected our friendship. we had some rather valid
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arguments in sessions of committee. it never affected our friendship. that is the kind of man you respect. the kind of man you like to work with and politics. >> after the assassination and before he entered the race in 1964, how ambivalent was the about running? >> he was ambivalent airport rolling toward running. one of the reasons he was so ambivalent after the assassination was because he knew the public would beat so on interest ability and the idea of having three presidents in the space of one year would be too much for people to care. >> a question here in the room. >> i had to keep good fortune of being in the formation of the goldwater institute. i want to make a comment and a question. one of his unique features is he never sought publicity.
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that made him unusual for a politician. when webber tried to form the organization even with the perspiration of congressman kyl, james kelley and others, he was still reluctant. we wanted to have a reward in his name. he was reluctant again to step forward and have the award named after him. he is unusual in many ways. my question is, is there anybody to compare him with? we think of ronald reagan or maybe somebody like bob taft. is there anyone else we can compare barry goldwater to? >> not alive today. >> i would say two people. ron paul and ronald reagan. i think he compares to ron paul in that ron paul is a very straightforward speaker who does not really care what the press thinks, but he just speaks from his heart about his ideas.
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it is his downfall. it was part of barry's downfall. also reagan likened that the core of his ideas that barry goldwater ran on ronald reagan letter implemented. ronald reagan had a smoother style. he was mr. hollywood. he had that wonderful smile and people loved him and he made people laugh. he ran basically on the same ideas that barry goldwater did and it brought over -- one in a landslide. sometimes when people say people did not like barry goldwater's ideas are there were not ready for them, i do not think that was a fair assessment. i think the assassination played a key role at that time. i think the poor messaging that barry goldwater did was a factor. i don't think it was the ideas. i think it was the way they were sold. >> i think the liberal
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congressman from illinois speaks with equal forthrightness. she is just as principled as barry goldwater. >> bruce is joining us from california. go ahead with your question. >> thank you for this program. i am a liberal who has only voted for one republican in my life and that was barry goldwater. i guess my attitude at the time, kennedy was such a young and new generation, articulate, and johnson seemed to be so much the old politics. two things i wanted to mention that i have not heard here, a choice not an echo was one of his big things i thought. the other point i wanted to make was there was a book called "a treason" that came out around the same time. this was basically john birch society. we had the birchers then and
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the birthers now. -- the birchers now. barry goldwater never really separated himself from that group. the night before the election, ronald reagan came on to boost barry goldwater's candidacy. a lot of the comments afterward was, maybe we got the wrong man. >> thank you for the call. we will talk about ronald reagan in about 20 minutes and show you a portion of what he spoke of toward the end of the 1964 campaign. >> this was absolutely scandalous itself. it was a book and argued every set back in america ever had was because there were secret communists infiltrating every part of the government. 20 million copies of this book were circulated. rich businessmen would buy up thousands and thousands of copies and hand them out everywhere.
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they are right. barry goldwater did not denounce this stuff. he would rationalize it by saying that people know there is something wrong out there and this is pushing in the right direction. maybe i disagree with that, but he never denounced the john birch society. i think that was one of his achilles' heels. he humored extremists. >> he has been quoted so often. we want to show you that but put it in some sort of a context of what he said before and afterwards. >> anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we welcome. [applause]
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we must not see in difference of opinion, no matter how great so long as they are not inconsistent with what we have given each other in and through our constitution. [applause] our republican cause -- >> how does that speech president along the republican electorate and the voters at large? >> richard nixon wrote in his memoirs that when he heard that he clearly felt sick to his stomach. the reason for that was, they had an incredibly divisive convention. barry goldwater won the most delegates by for because they organized it so well. many people in the party felt like they had stolen the party.
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the republican party was a moderate party and a conservative had one. what you are supposed to do, your role is to bind the wounds together of a divisive campaign. people can you night and go forward. instead, he seemed to be pushing in people's faces his acceptance of this notion of extremism. in the context of the time it meant things like the john birch society. it meant things like the southern segregationists who are changing their democratic affiliation to republican affiliation. the public itself and the context of this kennedy assassination was the idea that the bottom had dropped out of civility, people wanting so much for normalcy, it really did seem like something once again that was frightening, that was strange, that was perverse. his numbers went way down. a week after that, there was a
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terrible riot and harlem. it increased their sense that barry goldwater was associated with these very frightening sources in american life. when people were riding in harlem, people were saying things like, they are shooting black people. this barry goldwater is happening. it shows the unfair paranoia that surrounded barry goldwater in this atmosphere in which people really felt that to the springs were being listened in america's consensus. >> good evening. welcome to the program. >> thank you. in 1986 congress passed a scholarship named after barry goldwater. i don't know if the irony every skit them based on what i have heard and the panel about his
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ideology that a federal scholarship would go to students. i think his comments on his use of public education and if there is any known about how his feelings of congress awarding him the scholarship. >> thank you, matthew. >> i have not heard that. that is something i would like to learn more about. certainly it would be ironic if it was true. he looked at the constitution. he did not see any role in their given to the federal government to be involved in education. he spoke out against federal involvement in education. he said, i don't want the federal government to educate my children. i don't what the state government to educate my children. i want to educate my children. if we can bring this up to
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modern times, what is so interesting and i think is a great tribute to barry goldwater is that arizona is one of the leading states in offering choices to parents -- school choice so people are not forced to go into government schools but can use tax money and take that to private schools or online tutoring. i think barry goldwater would have loved that and been crazy about that because this was something that he believed -- at bottom he believes in freedom. nothing is more fundamental than being able to direct how to were children are educated. the you know of the scholarship part is true? to be heard that? >> i have heard something or i just remembered after the senator died something about congress passing something in science and technology in his name. i cannot remember what it was if it was a scholarship thing. that is vague in my mind. >> you cannot talk about barry goldwater in the 1964 campaign without bringing up the ad you mentioned before.
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here once on september 7, 1964, labor day monday. it aired on nbc, and cbs and abc used it as subsequent stories. it is known as the daisy ad. >> one, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine, nine -- >> ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. >> these are the stakes -- to make a world in which all of god's children can live, or to go into the dark. we must either love each other,
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or we must die. >> vote for president johnson on november 3. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> 50 years later, they're still talking about this ad. why? >> it was devastating. he never mentioned barry goldwater's name. he did not need to. keep in mind the whole campaign up to that point focused on the word "extremist." that is over and over it in. -- and over again. this was just another little piece of barry goldwater is an extremist. he will get us into nuclear wars. i want to say something about that ad. that ad is written and designed by -- >> tony swartz.
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>> bill moyers. >> that is not true. that is absurd. >> let me finish. barry goldwater in my show is on camera. he said, bill moyers was behind that. he said, i tried years later after words to talk to bill moyers about it. he thought it was a pretty rotten deal. i tried to talk to bill moyers and he never returned my phone call. susan, his second wife, told me after, bill moyers was in town for something that related to politics. she had occasion to talk to him. bill moyers said it to susan, yes, it was a shame. i tried to get a hold of barry goldwater to talk to him about a lot of times. we could just never beat up.
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-- could never meet up. susan was implying that was balogna. >> i can state categorically having a record every memo with how the advertisements were created in 1964 that bill moyers had nothing to do with creating that had it. -- with creating that ad. >> he was white house press secretary at the time. >> he wrote memos about the ad. he was involved in the media strategy. he did not create the ad. >> question here. >> the subtitle for your book is "the unmaking of a consensus." i am interested in what is making a consensus -- what is it that was done made and are we making a new one? >> i think in a sense the word consensus would have to appear in quotation marks. there was a myth that after world war ii that since the eisenhower administration accepted the new deal as a template, eisenhower said that anyone who fiddled with social
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security would never live to see another political that. he expanding the welfare state in certain ways. this idea that -- i might even read just a classic statement about how the american consensus was on top of that the time. the dean of rutgers wrote in a magazine, in america there are no basic disagreements between intellectuals, bankers, trade unionists, artists, a businessman, beatniks, professional people, and politicians to name a few. there are no real critics, no new ideas, no fundamental differences of opinion. the idea that the western world, not just america, had converged on the idea of welfare state to organize the world was seen as permanent. what is so fascinating to me
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and why i called him up before the storm is almost immediately in the 1960's gives like to that notion. americans are at each other's throats. we are debating in the most fundamental ways. it was the american consensus. in 1964 is when we began to see these come apart. barry goldwater is a central figure in that. >> if you could in just a minute, the issue of civil rights in the 1964 vote, barry goldwater voted against it and it became one of the issues of the campaign. >> a couple of fascinating points about that. we talked about the lyndon johnson television commercials. they had a few in the can boasting about the civil war -- civil-rights deal. they did not run those. the idea of a backlash and civil rights was already present. in california, in the book i publish a headline in the new york times, what backlash did
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not develop? maybe people would vote for barry goldwater because there were so terrified of blacks having civil rights. in california on the same day that lyndon johnson won by 1 million votes, there was also a vote for a referendum. that referendum was on open housing. by 1 million votes, californians voted to reject the idea of open housing trade to reject a law that says you cannot discriminate on the basis of race to whom you rent your home. the idea of a backlash against civil rights was latent at the time and became the most explosive issue in american politics in the decades to come. >> if you look at what happened in 1952 when dwight eisenhower won, but you look at the south and the impact the civil rights vote have for democrats in 1964, what is the difference? >> that was the party of the carpetbaggers. it was the party if you voted
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for republicans and they had a total, it would monopolize the black vote. there were all these panics about -- we have all seen "gone with the wind." the shift began in 1964. five states voted for goldwater. when lyndon johnson signed it the civil-rights bill, he said i and signing away the south for the democratic party for at least one generation. the south now is primarily a republican region and that is because conservatives led by barry goldwater decided to retreat from the idea of the federal government advancing civil rights for african
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americans. >> two years after -- and two years after he became governor of california, we had a portion of the speech he delivered. it is called a time for choosing. late in the campaign as ronald reagan talked about the virtues of barry goldwater. >> i think it is time that we ask ourselves now we still the freedoms that were intended for us by the founding fathers. not too long ago two trends of mine were talking to a human graffiti. a businessman who had escaped from castro. one of my friends turn to the other and said we do not know how lucky we are. the cuban stopped and said, how lucky you are? i had some place to escape to. he told us the entire story. if we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape. this is the last stand on earth. his idea that government is beholden to the people that it has no other source of power behind the sovereign people is still the newest and most unique idea and the world's longest relationship to man.
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you and i have a rendezvous with destiny. we will preserve this last stop for man on earth or we will force them to take a step of 1000 years of darkness. we will remember that barry goldwater has faith in us. he has faith that you and i have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny. thank you very much. [applause] >> from october to date -- october 22, 1964, what is the history behind that speech? >> why did he deliver it? >> i don't know who drafted the speech. he probably does. that is okay. barry goldwater himself was a
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great speaker. i mean dramatic. he was wonderful. he did not like prepared written speeches. somebody wrote to that speech for barry goldwater and submit it to him. my source on this is bob goldwater and some other historians. he read it and said this is a great speech, but i am not good at giving written speeches. ronald reagan can do this speech at lot better. they sent it over to him to deliver it on tv or wherever it was. ronald reagan did it. that was the beginning of a reagan ending up as president was that speech which was written for barry goldwater. >> it also led another -- a number of california executives to coach according to governor in 1966. >> he had given similar speeches the early '60s. the people who had been in
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charge of basically handling the money for. goldwater's television account were so fed up with the terrible commercials, that basically said if you let us spend it the whole way, will spend it the way we want to. we are going to basically sequester this money. they played hard ball. that is how they got ronald reagan on the air. after he gave that speech, telegrams poured into the campaign. money poured into the campaign. people started talking about ronald reagan as a gubernatorial possibility. david said it was the best political debut he had ever heard of since the speech by william jennings bryant. >> the relationship, was it a close relationship or was it more of an acquaintance? >> ronald reagan, his father was a wealthy physician that knew the goldwaters.
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there is a whole fascinating thing ever to my book that these people who ran his campaign did not want ronald reagan to give it this speech. it is a little different. he had set thinks about social security that barry goldwater had gotten in trouble for earlier in the year. basically what ronald reagan said to barry goldwater, why don't you listen to it. if you object to it. we do not have to run it. barry goldwater heard it and said this is great, i don't see what the fuss is about. the rest is history. >> good evening. >> good evening, sir. he pretty much answered my question. i was wondering what mr. barry goldwater thought about the way he gave the speech that night.
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also, mr. barry goldwater and ronald reagan and william buckley, did they ever have difference of opinion as far as conservatism or were they in accord? with that, i thank you for taking my question. >> thank you. >> william f. buckley was actually shut out of the goldwater campaign late in 1963. it was a power play by a fellow by the name of -- it was power politics. william f. buckley on several different occasions that he did not think that barry goldwater would make a good president. he was not ready to be president and not smart enough to be president. now, ronald reagan to talk relationship with william buckley is complicated. the panama canal, they had a
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famous debate in which william f. buckley argued that it was a good thing. ronald reagan had basically run his 1976 campaign on the idea that it was a bad thing. these are the personality clashes that any of these guys are going to have. >> can i recommend that a great book for this questionnaire -- william f. buckley's last book that he published is called "flying high." it is one of the best books ever written about goldwater. i recommend it. >> i have two questions for the panel to address. i wonder if by engaging over directly about the issue over vietnam, barry goldwater could have forced lyndon johnson to come up with an exit strategy
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and hasten the war's conclusion. >> let's get that and we will follow up on your second on. >> i am not sure that -- there were forces trying to persuade lyndon johnson to do a lot of things about vietnam's. none of them prevailed. i am not sure he could have had much influence on lyndon johnson. i do not know. i did not say expert on that. we have some vietnam veterans in the crowd. maybe they know. >> my second point is we have heard a lot tonight about his consistency. in 1996, he endorsed bill clinton for president. i would love it if the panel could be behind the motivations of that endorsement. >> he was a guy that could bear grudges. bob dole had been around a lot in republican politics. i would not be surprised if bob dole had angered him somewhere along the way. i do not know the back story
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behind it. i would love to know. >> he also endorsed a woman named karen english for a congressional seat in arizona who was a democrat. she won and served one term. >> along those lines, when asked about his consistency, one of my favorite stories is about that. he endorsed someone who was a fiscal conservative but was a democrat over a republican who he thought was a big spender. the republican party chairman in arizona called him up and said, you are speaking out too much. you need to get in line. if you don't stop endorsing this democrat, we are or to take your name off of the republican party headquarters. barry goldwater said to him, if the republicans don't remember the principles that we stand
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for, i will make you take my name off of the republican party headquarters. >> over the years, especially since he was in retirement, a number of public figures both republicans and democrats would come out here to meet with barry goldwater. why? >> they admired him. he is one of the time. a person of integrity. they may not have agreed with them, but he was one of the time. you have to keep in mind when barry goldwater died, bill clinton had the flags of the united states lowered to half staff on the day of his funeral. that had never happened before and will probably never happen again. >> one quick point about hillary clinton being a goldwater girl in 1964. >> he had a very fascinating rehabilitation in the 1970's. there was an article in the new york times magazine in april of 1974.
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in 1964 he was bela lugosi. the liberals love barry goldwater now. what it was about is how it reviewed a lot of the unfairness that we have been talking about. the reconsideration centered it around the fact he was being so forthright in excoriating richard nixon for his lies. >> welcome to the program. >> thank you so much. i was raised in phoenix and my family worshipped goldwater. we were active in his campaign. my brother became a libertarian and said it would never need to be a libertarian party if barry goldwater had just become president. i was then later a 1992 delegate to the republican convention. it was going to be a big fight that year, a platform fight over putting abortion in the platform. one week before the convention, barry goldwater made a statement to the press about
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there was no "blankety blank" way that should be in the platform. but i got to the convention, there were all of these tables. here was a big blue button that said "barry's right." i bought that and were it the entire week. to this day it is my most prized possession. barry is still right. >> thank you for the call. >> you know, i think that is a difficult issue. i think a lot of people like to use that to call -- i am not saying your caller did this. to position barry goldwater as a libertarian. i think they know that 2% of the public consider themselves libertarians and try to marginalize him that way. the truth is that a lot of conservatives believe that the federal government should not
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have any role in the question of whether or not abortion is a crime. william f. buckley is a pretty strong conservative. i do not think anybody would quibble with that. he also believed that was not the role of the federal government. marketing comes into play here. the way people took what barry goldwater said is not the way people took what will lead f. buckley said. it were saying the same thing. >> you cannot talk about barry goldwater -- we should point out he left the senate in 1964 because his term expired. he came back and had a very important role as he met with richard nixon two days before his resignation. what is the story? >> he was the guy who led a delegation of republicans. it is very simple. impeachment of a political process, he said that you do not have the votes in the senate to win in a trial. therefore, you do not want to
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be the first president to be thrown out on your ear by the senate. you ought to resign. richard nixon took his advice. richard nixon resigned on august 9, 1974. >> the relationship between the two? >> testy. barry goldwater consistently throughout watergate would prod richard nixon to tell the truth. he said this is beginning to smell. there was a very famous showdown between barry goldwater and richard nixon at the 1960 republican convention. one of the most important set pieces and conservative history. nelson rockefeller basically
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threatened a floor fight unless he could dictate the terms of the republican platform. he forced richard nixon to fly to new york to negotiate the terms of the platform. it was announced in chicago where the convention was. barry goldwater was so mad he give this angry speech calling it munich of the republican party. that was when people started demonstrating for barry goldwater at that convention to usurp the nomination from richard nixon. ever since that point i don't think he ever really trusted richard nixon. >> tipping ahead to watergate is what brought on the resignation. barry goldwater told me and bob goldwater reiterates this. the reason that barry goldwater was so angry at richard nixon leading up to the resignation is because, "richard was a g-d
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liar." there is a thing in the documentary, from childhood he said that if we did something wrong and we told the truth, we did not get punished. if we lied, we got punished. there is a very strong thing about lying. he was so angry at richard nixon for lying through watergate. >> in 1968 i was covering the republican convention in miami. i was able to meet barry goldwater who was there. he was extremely nice. he struck me as totally different from his national image. i also discovered ronald reagan in the back of the news section
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of an auditorium being interviewed in a booth by nbc. i was the on the what to see him there. ronald reagan was making noises about running for president at that convention. i stood outside while he was finishing the interview. i think it was with david brinkley. he came out and by that time a whole lot of other reporters had gathered out there. mr. ronald reagan came out. i asked him a couple of questions. other reporters circled him. there were 20 or 30 of them. i was throwing questions over the top of that. he was very nicely yelling his answers back to my microphone. we went around a corner. the whole gang of people swept into this table at the end of it knocking over a little man with his typewriter on the floor.
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i let them go. i stop and help to this little man. i looked into his face and it was theodore s. white. that stopped me right there. he was just so -- he apologized to me for that. i got to meet three really nice people there. barry goldwater, ronald reagan, and theodore s. white. >> thank you for the phone call from new orleans. conventions were quite different in 1964 and 1968. >> i do think in the making of the president, teddy white was pretty patronizing to barry goldwater. the 1964 convention was angry. i was told that it was so impassioned and have violently angry by the media -- the eastern establishment press, david brinkley told his son who
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was a teenager at the time that you are under no circumstances to wear your nbc insignia around san francisco. that is why people were afraid of this idea of the goldwater movement as this crazy fascist thing. it was a dangerous for any time. >> in his final two years in the u.s. senate before retiring, he put forth ronald reagan's nomination to serve a second term and to beat the republican nominee in 1984. >> one month ago i sat in my den and watched the democratic national convention. speaker after speaker promised the known to every narrow sense
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his group in the country. they ignored the hopes and aspirations of the largest special interest group all -- and free men and free women. [applause] so tonight, i want to speak about freedom. let me remind you that extremism as a defense of liberty is no vice. [applause] >> essential barry goldwater? >> absolutely. people loved barry goldwater. what he was expressing is akin
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to "give me liberty or give me death." and in america, we believe this. i think sometimes the loss of the 1964 campaign is mistakenly interpreted as an outright rejection of those ideas. it was not anything of the sort. you can hear it from the cheering. you can hear it from the reagan revolution. you know, that is what the liberal press at that time wanted people to believe. when he lost the campaign, the new york times' washington bureau chief had said that barry goldwater had not only lost but have lost the entire conservative cause. there were always talking about the death of conservatism. that is wishful thinking. it remains wishful thinking on
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the part of the press. that is classic barry goldwater. it reflects what many a americans believe which is that you cannot be too passionate, to committee, or two extreme, if you want to use that word, in defense of our constitutional freedoms. >> jay is joining us from the york city. go ahead please. >> i just recently became into politics with the election of barack obama. i tried to look and see what the backlash was so i looked at barry goldwater and read the book "conscience of a conservative." you look at certain organizations and they praise these conservatives, i look at the record and try to think why do they not vote for conservatives? why is it so monolithic? what is the situation? you look at the state's right
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speech. can conservatives at least understand that when you keep treating people like ronald reagan and barry goldwater, all we have to do is pick up the book and the record is right there. until you can be honest and say you are wrong on this. you cannot say freedom and equality when a whole segment of society feels like they are alienated. i would like to take that comment on the air. thank you for taking my call. >> thank you, jay. >> i certainly understand what the caller was saying in his views. i think more what he is referring to whether he realizes it or not is the image of barry goldwater that was put out there has been a crazy guy or a racist or whatever. he really was not. you can say whatevery you want
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about barry goldwater, he was never a hateful person. he was never a vengeful person in his handling of politics. i wish some of these 12 people running around for president presently would adopt the niceness of barry goldwater. >> it is important to note also by the end of the 1964 campaign, barry goldwater did make a very important and subtle shift on his position on civil rights. he would always say that he was an integrationist. that was his goal for society. by the end of the campaign as he was trying to win the southern states, he did say, our goal is neither to have an integrated or a segregated society. it is to have a free society. he did seem to move away from the idea of integration as a positive good.
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>> the reform debate in 1960 and in no debates in 1964. why? >> in order to have a debate, you had to suspend a rule of the federal communications commission so that every candidate -- of 30 candidates including the beekeepers party -- would not have to be on the states. lyndon johnson wired net income or so it was impossible. he did not want to face barry goldwater. it says something like maybe he thought barry goldwater would have been a worthy adversary. >> this question is for darcy. do you see the tea party movement as a resurgence of barry goldwater movement? >> i definitely think there are -- the tea party -- the best way to answer that is it is not monolithic. there are all kinds of people who constitute the tea party and a lot of ideas in the tea
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party. if you look at the tea party as a group of people who have fought these gigantic bailouts and washington, they fought the raising of the debt ceiling, they fought the federal takeover of health care. all of these things he would have been with them on. coming out and some of the major pieces and what the tea party folks are working on. >> franklin is on the phone. we welcome you. >> i would like to make a comment. if we would have elected barry goldwater as president in 1964, we would have won the war in vietnam. he did not believe in public opinion to guide the war. i would also like to say that i
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think barry goldwater told mr. nixon that he could not hold the south for him or make sure the south would stay for him. they asked him to resign instead of be impeached. thank you. >> franklin, thank you. >> this stuff about how barry goldwater could have miraculously when the vietnam war. the united states paid over the entirety of a land mass of north and south vietnam with a quarter inch of steel. i think it is a fantasy. a pleasant one, but it is a glib position. >> we just have one minute or two left. did barry goldwater view's change as he got older? >> his basic core philosophy and the way he looked at life and politics. i have had battles and op-ed
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pages where people are like, he got senile and it turned liberal at the end. he did not. he was always a small l libertarian. freedom of choice whether it was abortion, gay rights, or any number of things. he was totally consistent his entire life. >> i agree with that. any question about any time period in his life when you look at what his position was and ask a question of whether it was constitutional or not, that will give you the answer to what his position was. people look around to find politicians who were as honest as him and stand for principles. there are few and far between. that is why he gave us his blessing. he knew he could not count on politicians to stand on principle all the time. with regular men and women supporting an organization who
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believed in those ideas, he would always have a voice for freedom. >> rick perlstein, i will give you the final word. what was the legacy of the 1964 campaign and what impact did he have? >> i think the legacy was organizational. it was the formation of organization that became a permanent conservative movement that lost the battle in 1964 but lived to fight a dozen of battles more. i think his legacy is to have inspired these people to become something -- become part of something greater than themselves. to inspire people who felt frustrated with the course of the country to take civic action. >> the book is called "before the storm," by rick perlstein. thank you to darcy olsen for hosting us here at the goldwater institute. and bill mccune who is a former
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arizona state legislature and a producer of a documentary called "barry goldwater: an american life." we want to leave you with some of the words of barry goldwater with an interview we did with him while he was winding down his political career from the c-span archives in 1985. >> another thing i would tell politicians coming into washington -- your reelection is not going to make or break the united states. do the best job you can do. that is what you are here for. to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. be honest. that is all i would tell them. >> how about the republican party leaders today? >> i think we have good leadership here today. lord knows we spent long enough
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time out of office that we should have learned some things. politics go in a circle. you will find the liberal element running things for a while. now, we find the conservatives on the way up. the conservatives will run things until he runs out of ideas. the other party or even the republican party that becomes the liberal party will take over. our politics in amercan go around in circles. i think that is great. ♪go with goldwater. go with goldwater. ♪you know where goldwater stands. >> we feature barry goldwater, 47 years after his defeat of
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lyndon johnson. that starts at 10:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> on c-span tonight, a campaign events from iowa. the former house speaker newt gingrich held a town hall meeting. congresswoman michele bachman makes a stop in bedford. >> on tomorrow's "washington journal" communications director for the bachman campaign. matthew strawn. and robert means about u.s. ethanol policy. "washington journal" begins like a 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> it is a three day holiday weekend on book tv. the 3000 new history of jerusalem saturday night at 9:00
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p.m. eastern. afterward, michael on free will and the science of the brain at o'clock p.m.. monday at 7:00 p.m., marc stein believes the u.s. is destined for collapse in decline if current trends continue. also this weekend, sunday lead at noon, your calls and e-mails in depth with pulitzer prize winner chris hedes. he right about war. his latest is "the war as it is." every weekend on c-span2. >> at the iowa caucuses, c-span cameras are following candidates and events. every morning, political guess are taking your calls. he can also stay up-to-date with the c-span campaign in 2012 website. there's also biography
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information. candidates on the issues and to see what the candidates have said i'd issues important to you. read what the reporters like you are saying on sites like facebook and twitter. it is all at c-span.org/ campaign2012. >> no. newt gingrich held a town hall meeting today at a local shopping mall in iowa. this is about two hours north of the capital. in his opening remarks, the former house speaker talks about the economy, jobs, and energy production. he also takes questions concerning north carry education reform. this'll be held next tuesday on january 3. this is one hour and 10 minutes. >> that is wonderful. it is my honor and pleasure this morning to be able to introduce
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the former speaker of the house newt gingrich. i know that the 2012 election is going to be about ideas and solutions, helping us get back on track to rebuild the american we love. there's no better person to get that job done then speaker of the house newt gingrich. [applause] [cheers] >> thank you for coming out today. i want to thank linda. she has been the heart of our campaign here in iowa. she did a great job. look at the budget they worked out without tax increases. washington could learn a lot of lessons from linda and the republicans in the legislature and the governor in how to get things done that would make washington that much better.
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i want to educate washington to be more like iowa rather than have by what become more like washington -- rather than have iowa. we're glad to be here in the closing days of the campaign in iowa. how many of you have received more than enough negative ads and mailers and what have you? i want to make two commitments to you. you'll see ads from us in the next six days and they are going to be positive. i think that we have enough trouble in this country that we should have a campaign of positive ideas and positive solutions.
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the only person helped by negative ads is barack obama and our business is to defeat him. [applause] i am going to talk briefly and take questions. i will be glad to answer questions about the negative ads. we have been doing a telephone town hall meetings. josh burns is over here. he got a call as part of a town hall meeting so he and his daughter to dissipated in the call. we had 9700 people. i am happy to answer any questions about these exaggerations. i want to focus on jobs and the economy. you have a relatively good economy here in iowa. the united states is the economic engine which pulls the world economy. there are troubling signs out there in europe, asia, the
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middle east. there is a real danger that the world economy could take another step downward in 2012. having a healthy economy is a key part of us getting ahead. i think the disaster of the president and the congress passing a two-month extension is really embarrassing. i do not think i have ever seen washington more dysfunctional on a bipartisan basis than it is right now. [applause] i think this is very serious for the country. it is a mess. no family knows how to plan. you know there'll be another crisis in february and another one back in may. this is an absurd way to govern.
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i was a junior member when ronald reagan was elected. tip o'neill was speaker of the house. we needed 1/3 of the democrats to pass anything, and we did. we worked and we got bill clinton to sign a welfare reform, the first tax cut in 16 years, the largest capital gains tax cut in history. we passed welfare reform. child poverty declined because parents were working. the democrats split. we passed the tax cuts in the largest tax cut, unemployment dropped to 4.2%. we were able to balance the budget for four straight years. i have twice participated in
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serious bipartisan reform work you have to reach the american people with the idea to get the american people to reach their senators and congressmen to get things done. this is the cost of amateurism. barack obama has no idea how to negotiate. the leader of the democrats in the senate is partisan. you have a log jam. i was fortunate in the reagan years and the clinton years to have somebody rational to work with. we fought pretty hard but with an understanding that the country is bigger than our ideology and we have to find a way to get the country to work. america only works when americans are working.
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that's a key principle of this campaign. we're focusing on jobs, the economy. i first worked back in the 1970's when richard, jack kemp were working on a supply side economics. you solve problems by having more things -- more oil, more corn production. it was a fundamental argument that focused on the demand side. many people thought we had won the argument. there was a fascinating book in which it would describe how economists had won and the demand guys had lost.
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it was untrue. it puts control with the politicians. they don't like the ron reagan supply-side approach because it puts power in the hands of the people. if you believe in markets, that means you have to make decisions and you have to be in charge. you have to be in charge -- the president does not create jobs. they can create conditions that favor or hurt jobs. the american people create jobs. the hard work of americans
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create jobs. we're back in the same competition between a supply- side approach that we popularize 30 years ago and the much more timid, washington- centered approach which will not create jobs. obama represents the extreme version, which kills jobs. consider the reagan model. cut taxes, cut regulations, strengthen energy production, and appraise the people who create jobs. to the important to shop for work on monday and to save and to invest. look at the obama model. higher taxes and class warfare that attacks people who create jobs. i don't think the white house has a clue.
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take the xl keystone pipeline. 20,000 jobs immediately. a generation of money coming to the u.s. from canadian oil on the way to worldwide distribution. the president postpones it. the alarm of the extremists are against building the pipeline. we built pipelines all the time. they do not want canadian oil on the world market. they are trying to find a way to keep canadian oil in canada. it is one thing to route administration that cannot play chess -- it is one thing to have an administration that cannot play chess. it is another thing to have an
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administration that cannot play checkers. the want to build the pipeline and not a penny will come to the united states and not a job will be created in the united states. the oil will be used by the chinese. that's what the president is faced with. so he goes to brazil and says, "i want to be your best customer." he praises the brazilians for drilling offshore. he says we can guarantee to billion dollars in equipment for it george soros-invested company. this is backwards. we do not want the president of the united states to be
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purchasing agent for foreign countries. we want him to be a salesman for american products. we need a president that opens up markets for american agricultural products because we produce more than we can absorb hero home. i think obama has it exactly backwards. we have an economic plan. it is straightforward. cut taxes. favre people who create jobs -- favor people who create jobs. we have zero capital gains. we go to a 12.5% tax rate. it means that companies will compete worldwide. this will give us a lower corporate tax rate with canada. it means general electric will actually pay taxes.
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we have 100% expenses. all new equipment gets written off in one year. if we are going to compete with china and india, we have to have the most modern equipment in the world. we need productivity. i favor changing the unemployment compensation. you have to sign up for training program by a business so we are creating better skills and a better work force and not paying people for 99 weeks for doing nothing. [applause]
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so the new equipment would be better trained work force means we will be the most -- the best country in the world. some politician can take half from your family when you die. we abolished the death tax. [applause] finally, we provide a 15% flat tax option. you can keep the current code or fill out a single page, list, it you earn, how much dependence you have and pay 15%. people can either keep records are not keep records, but you have the choice, not politicians. part two, regulations. i will ask the new congress on january 3rd, before i am sworn in, to stay in office and repeal obama care, repeal dodd-frank -- [applause]
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they should repeal a because it is killing banks, crippling small business and dropping -- driving down the hype -- driving down the price of housing. middle-class homes lost value yesterday. if the repeal dodd-frank, you help independent small banks being crushed by red tape. i would also ask and to repeal sarbanes oxley which has produced no information of any value over the last three years. those will start to liberate american business. i would like those three done before i am sworn in, so the day after i am sworn in, i can sign them and we have that are done in january and we can go about passing good reforms to replace the bad ones we have repealed.
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on the day i am inaugurated, we will have a day one plan that we will publish by october 1st of next year that i will sign two hours after i am sworn in. i will sign between 102 hundred executive orders. the first will abolish all of the white house czars as of that moment. [applause] in addition to repealing those three bills, i would ask the congress to replace the environmental protection agency with a brand new environmental solutions agency, and i mean replaced. i believe the current bureaucracy at the epa is so radical, so anti-community and so lacking in common sense you can our format. everywhere i go, small towns tell me they are being crushed by epa bureaucrats in washington who never visited their town and have no idea what they're demanding.
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the economic cost to small towns of america is extraordinary. if you go out and talk to businesses, they have a proposal on electricity which will almost certainly lead to brownouts at a time we're trying to compete in the world market, we will dramatically raise the cost of electricity. senator grassley spent a year fighting dust provisions. an agency that takes the general ability to look at particulate matter and creek -- and clean air, and turns it into a bureaucratic study of whether or not or when you plow the dirt from your field will drift into the neighboring field and of the wind is high enough, the dust from your plowing will go into the neighboring field, you should not plow that day. do you know how hard you have to work to be this stupid? [laughter]
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this is a guy in the washington area that lives in high-rise apartment with air conditioning and it's on the metro with air- conditioning to ride to his high-rise office where he has no windows where he sits and contemplates dust. it makes no sense at all. i was in arizona. it is worse in arizona. arizona is a desert and we get natural dust storms. we have someone from epa that says to us what you should do is water down the dirt so you don't get dust storms. he said we are trying to explain to them the reason it is called a desert is because we don't have any water. [laughter] i would like to replace the epa with an environmental solutions agency based on common sense and practicality. i would like to modernize the food and drug administration board's job will be understanding science and getting it to the patient so we can be the leading developer of new medicine and technology. health is going to be the best producer of high-value jobs and we wanted fda that helps us be
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at the top and does not hurt us. on energy, let me say unequivocally, with ronald reagan in 1984, some of you are old enough to remember this. i voted for a thing called gasohol and he signed it because i was part of getting away from iran, saudi arabia and the middle east. in 1986, we became -- we renewed what became known as ethanol. when big oil tried to kill at all, senator grassley said i was a person who saved it. there's a practical reason. if i could choose between a billion dollars going to iran or billion dollars going to iowa, i prefer iowa. if i had to choose a billion dollars going to saudi arabia or south dakota, i prefer south dakota. when you watch the iranians, the news this morning, there are practicing how to close the streets of the virtues. -- the straits of mirmuz.
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the secretary of schulz -- secretary of state, george shultz, said to me, how often do we have to get a vote -- get hit over the head with a to buy ford realize we need an energy policy that maximizes american energy production? if the straits of hormuz are closed, you will see a catastrophe in the world market and a depression in the world. we have had 30 years to prepare for this. we exactly what the danger is and what the requirement is. if you look at north dakota where the federal government could not stop because on private land, the field in north dakota has 25 times, 2500% more oil and gas than the geological survey bought five or six years ago and we are developing it because of on private land. if we had a president that was pro-american energy, we would develop ethanol and next generation biofuel, we would develop wind, only denmark produces more wind energy and iowa.
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we would develop coal, nuclear -- coal, nuclear power and solar. but our goal would be to produce a surplus of american energy so in a crisis you could wave at the middle east. my goal would be to be able as president and never about to a saudi king or walk arm in arm. i want to explain to the saudis we don't need your oil and we're not going to tolerate your support of terrorism. [applause] let me say one last thing and then i will throw it open to questions. i am not here to ask you to be for me. if you are for me, you'll vote and go home and say you hope i will fix it. i don't think even the president of the united states can get this country back on the right track by themselves. i'm here to ask you to be with me.
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we need you to be with us for the next eight years to stand side-by-side. we need you to remind congress what we're trying to get done and reminded governor and state legislature, the city council and county commission and the school board. in addition, we need your help. if we do all the things we need to do to get america back on track, we are going to make mistakes. when we make mistakes, we need social media so you can say it is not working. the world has changed and here is a better idea. i don't think 537 elected officials can fix it. but i think millions of americans can fix it easily. if we apply the 10th amendment and shrink government in washington, we have to growth citizenship in mason city. we have to be in a position where everybody understands that citizenship has to rise as bureaucracy shrinks. i will ask you to be with me.
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i would love to have your help next week. i believe we can win the general election decisively and i will challenge the president to seven free hours of debate in the lincoln-douglas style and i will concede in advance he can use a teleprompter. after all, if you had to defend obama care, wouldn't you want to use a teleprompter? i would love to have your help and i would love to toss it open to questions of that is all right. >> given the recent instability got potential for instability in the north korean plant -- north korean plan -- north korean peninsula, how would your administration be different from obama's?
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>> you have to develop a ballistic missile defense because cannot have the risk of a north korean missile reaching the united states. we need to actively defend ourselves. we need to rebuild our intelligence capabilities. i met recently in los angeles with korean-americans -- there are 600,000 korean-americans in los angeles but our ability to understand north korea is very difficult. you want to avoid getting into a fight -- this regime is going to be very shaky because the son who is taking over is very young and it is a regime which values age. all of the old generals are going to be very suspicious of this very young new leader and i think we should be careful about what we do because what you don't want to do is cause them to react out of fear. but we should constantly pressure them. our goal is to replace the dictatorship, but even the south koreans frankly waver between whether they are more frightened of a north korean military or more frightened of north korea collapsing.
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the south korea looked at how expensive it was for germany to absorb east germany and a no north korea would be vastly more expensive. it's a balancing act in the region, but we have to have a strong national defense and we need a balloon -- need a ballistic missile defense that would make it impossible for the north koreans to attack us directly. [applause] >> what you perceive to be the role of the national government as we seek to improve the education system in the country? >> that's a very good question. we should dramatically shrink the department of education and limit the federal government ability to oversee education and eliminate the testing model which has everyone being taught to the test. i would return power to the states but i think we should have less power in the state department of education. i would like to see as get back to where parents are the primary and blenders of educators and where they talk to the local school board and parents in the local school board talk to them about education. i can say things that are about america that we're not going to do out of washington.
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every state should adopt the idea that you need discipline in the classroom and when i was young, if you got in trouble with the teacher, you got in trouble at home for having gotten in trouble with the teacher. then we got in the cycle where parents say how could you say that, i'm going to sue you. we have to get serious. the reason they're called teachers is because they're supposed to be in charge and your the student because you are supposed to learn from them. we need to reassert discipline and a classroom of we have any opportunity to have the kind of education we need in this country. [applause] >> welcome to iowa.
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maybe expected this question, maybe not. i know i represent a good amount of americans that believe in god and country and our founding and our principles. as president, i want to know what you do to be able to support got in america and promote our heritage? >> that it's a very good question. i have written a book called rediscovering got in america and made a movie about the topic. there is a paper that is controversial called rebalancing big dish jury -- the judiciary. this has come from judges who are secular and i was drawn into this in 2002 when the ninth circuit court ruled one nation under god was unconstitutional. i thought that was such a radically anti-american position that i got intrigued with how had the court becomes the radical? if you go to newt.org, you will see a very complicated paper that we spent nine years working on.
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if you look at the constitution, this is one of the great examples of how big a change has to be. the constitution says there is a balance of power between the three co-equal branches. you have the judicial, executive and legislative. the way they wrote it, the legislative comes first, executive is second and judicial is third. the federalist papers explain in the judicial branch and alexander hamilton rights -- it will always be the weakest of the three branches and would never pick a fight with the president and congress because it would inevitably lose the fight. in 1958, earl warren court totally subverted the american constitution and said the supreme court is the final diviner of the constitution. by definition, that sets the supreme court above the legislative and executive branches and politicians have tolerated it. what that has done is that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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you have judges today who are drunk on power. judge barry in san antonio on june 1st said not only could high-school students not pray at their graduations, they could not use the word invocation, they could not use the word benediction, they could not ask for silence, they could not ask the audience to stand and could not mention got. he went on to say if any of these five were violated, i would put the superintendent in jail. -- mention god. i believe that's a bigoted anti-religious dictates by speech dictator which is not appropriate for the federal bench and i think he should be taken off the bench. [applause] the first that this to pass the congress to consider impeachment which would require an to come to congress under the constitution and defend his position. explain why he would issue such
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a radical statement. i think just the act of getting into defendant would be very helpful in resetting it. you cannot explain america without the declaration of independence, which is a political document. you cannot explain the declaration of independence without understanding it says we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. we are the only country that says power comes from god to each will be personally and we have to have a position that says we're going to defend in the public square and rebalance the courts so they understand they are one of three branches and they are not the dictator to the other two branches. [applause] >> mr. speaker, considering we have a fairly dysfunctional congress, what is your stand on amendment to the constitution
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to limit congressional terms? >> i'm actually less favorable to term limits that i was in the 1990's. the reason is the experience of states like california where term limited state legislators never figure out what's going on and so the lobbyists and bureaucrats now run the states. i am in favor of dramatic election law reform. i would make it illegal for anybody to give any amount of after-tax personal income if they reported it every night on the internet so you know who is backing who. overnight, you have challengers spring up against incumbents all of the country and would have a much more competitive environment. as late as 1890, half of every congress was brand new. does because the elections were straightforward. what we have done now is build incumbency castle for the first thing an incumbent does is raise money to be so invulnerable that no one can run against them. now we're getting millionaires to buy seats and i think that's very dangerous to the future of
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american democracy. my dad served in army for 27 years. i was a college teacher, i was a middle-class person. we don't come out of a background where we can buy a seat as mayor bloomberg did, by the mayorship of new york. if you look at how he did that, he just wrote a check and bought it. it makes it money government. finding a way for a middle- class candidates to make the money to challenge incumbents, you will be these guys every two or six years in the senate if they have to face real challenges and real organizations. >> mr. speaker, given the reaction you have drawn, would you revisit your comment about poor kids working in public schools and please do not skip over child labor laws and the work ethic.
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>> my newsletter today, you happen to touch on a good topic, my newsletter is about new york city janitors. they're paid more than new york city teachers. it's about the fact that you can make well over $100,000 a year as a janitor with a contract that doesn't require you to mop the floor more than once a week. i suggested that he took half the janitors for $100,000, you could hire 30 kids at $3,000 a year to work part-time in the school. they could do everything from working in the library to working in the cafeteria to working the front office. i will be bold, they can mop the floor. i have had liberals jumping up in horror and suggest an trapping them into being janitors. my younger daughter who has written two books reminded me her first paying job with the
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first baptist church where she was cleaning the toilets and being a janitor. i mentioned this the other day to an editorial board who were in a state of shock and said you would have children actually deal with things like that? i said he talked to most iowa farm families, they will explain to you what they have their kids do and it turns out they encounter real work, some of them actually get dirty, they sometimes encountered dealing with things with animals. it's amazing on farms were you encounter. nobody seems to be horrified except the epa is proposing a rule that you can't allow children to work on the farm unless they are an immediate part of the family say you can have your cousin or niece or nephew come in. this is the kind of mindless left-wing thinking and let me tell you where it started. liberals used to say you don't want to get a hamburger flipping job. i was working with the mcdonald's people and studying
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mcdonald's, the most successful franchise system in the world. they have an entire training program -- they are the largest trainer of new workers in the world. guess what the first thing they have to train people -- show up. [laughter] the second thing they have to train people, you can't leave. [laughter] to people who grow up in middle-class families, this all makes sense. but if you grow up in a very poor neighborhood, two out of three children in the poorest neighborhoods have nobody in their family working, you are not acquiring the most basic habits. the goal is not to get into the trap that a job like that, the goal is to have them start rising by learning habits of work. i'm in the middle of this and i don't know if this is responsive to you or not, but i find it fascinating because the left went crazy. we were in new hampshire last week in manchester. a young man walks up to me who
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is 16 years old. he owns his own bill that company which he started at 11 because his father who is an investment adviser was trying to get him to understand free enterprise. so his father is thrilled because for the first time, he can deliver his own donuts without dad having to drive the car. but he has two restaurants that serve his doughnuts every morning. and he is out there making 40 doughnuts that time and packaging them. he has been in business for five years. i think this is wonderful. gallup reports that 50% of the kids in the united states would like to own their own business. i would like to say that in the poorest neighborhoods, if we had one less janitor and 30 kids working which would lower the dropout rates because it would have a reason to go to school, you'd have better kids with their pride with a better work ethic and they would rise
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in life from having learned that an early age that you can earn money, you can budget money, it is your money, it's not the government money and no politician can tell you what to do with it. i'm going to defend my belief that if we had more work we would have actually earned self-esteem, you cannot give self-esteem, you have to earn it. that's why the left is profoundly wrong about how america works. [applause] these two guys are the last to because i'm not going to pick between you. >> i have to issues. the light one would be that i think i would like to see a very, very classy lady be the first lady. [applause] >> i agree with you. i think she is somewhat homegrown here and will
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definitely add some flavor to washington. my second issue is i believe, it appears to me that arabs spring is going to turn into a muslim brotherhood summer. where can the united states position itself and the lead or if this does happen -- just a fear or a concern of mine. >> under first positive comment, let me mention about being home ground. we're at a pizza place which some of you remember. the room we met in was the room she had her graduation party in.
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her senior year, she spent her senior year of living above the pizza place showed that -- so she had pizza small 20 hours a day. she was really happy and the pizza was pretty darn good. there is every reason to worry if you watch what's happening in iraq, pakistan, egypt, tunisia, and libya. i will give you two quick examples. we have to liberate our intelligence community from all the restrictions congress has put on it for the last 36 years. we today don't know enough -- we don't have real spies. we rely on local governments to tell us this. it's enormously dangerous because we literally don't know, the libyans -- this was a primary supplier of anti- american fighters for iraq. are these anti-americans -- anti-american libyans who have taken over in libya?
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you can extend this to nigeria where there's a war against christians. in iraq, there were 1,200,000 christians when the americans arrived. there are 500,000 today. 700,000 christians have left because of the failure of americans. look at the things going on. we do not have a strategy large enough and comprehensive enough to deal with the scale of the problem. this is not a military problem. it is a strategic thinking problem first. the general who used to be the head of central command said to me on -- our strategic deficit is bigger than our fiscal deficit. in 1947, we intervened covertly and saved france and italy from going communist by pouring money into help the anti-communist side. we have no understanding today, no mechanisms and no capacity to help those who would like to be
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modern and moderate muslims and as a result, there's a great danger they will be drowned by the forces of radicalism and that is a danger in every single country where this is going on and we are simply unprepared. you get to be the last question. >> what is your stand on the un stand on wanting our guns? >> i believe the second amendment, which is worded very carefully, the second amendment does not give you the right to bear arms. the second amendment says of the right to bear arms shall not be abridged. that's very important. the founding father -- i am wearing george washington's command flag. they believe the right to bear arms was endowed by our creator as an ability to defend your political rights. the founding fathers knew if they had not had the right to bear arms, the british army would have crushed them.
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i believe the united states should actually go on offense worldwide. we should be explaining why the right to bear arms would lead to a better world. we should be actively fighting the united nations efforts. this goes back to who controls. the elites would like to take away our guns because the elites would like to control as with no recourse. having a free america made up of free people drives deletes crazy because we don't fit their model. they would like us to be subject to government. we are citizens and government should be subject to us and as a fundamental fight with elites all around the world and which have the courage to go out and take the second amendment everywhere in the world. [applause] thank you for coming out and spending this much time with us. look forward to getting pictures and seeing each of you, but let me ask each of you when you go to the caucus and as you talk to your friends across the state, this is still wide open. iowa has an opportunity to say
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to the rest the country the air of the-consultant running false ads is over. when you go to the caucus, remind your friends and neighbors do you want to reward somebody has done nothing but run negative ads or do you want to elect somebody who has big, positive solutions, runs positive ads, and at the track records of actually getting it done? i would love to have your support and we would love to work with you. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]
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>> that was the first day you were on the trail. good luck. >> thank you. need your help. >> thank you. >> mr. logan, i did not expect to see you again. >> how are you doing? thank you very much. >> how are you doing? >> thank you. >> nice to meet you. nice to meet you. hello. >> you went to -- >> i did.
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>> there are so many. ok, so is everybody semi ready? as i mentioned a bit earlier, we are very excited about tomorrow to continue our focus on jobs and economic growth and to remind people of the fundamental choice between a supply-side approach that encourages the creation of jobs and economic growth and a more establishment based one. i think art will be a big asset. he has been one of the pioneers. our focus is going to be for the caucus to focus on the economy and jobs and the fact that twice i helped do this, once with reagan in the 1980's and once as speaker in the
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house, and i think we will get this country going again and create the economic dynamic that we need if we are going to bring the world past the very real danger of a deeper recession, given the situation in the middle east. >> a strong american outback. the second most dangerous man in america. is that not a negative? >> i would discourage us not to do that anymore. i do not control them. i would discourage that kind of negative information. i think that is wrong. >> that you would not support ron paul as the nominee.
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are you not trying to have it both ways? >> feel uncomfortable in terms of my two grandchildren with someone who believes that an iranian nuclear weapon is irrelevant. it is one thing to stick to a policy position that he has said in debates. it is another thing to go out and run advertisements that are misleading. this is what i said all along, and i am very uncomfortable of the idea that the president would think it is irrelevant that there is an iranian nuclear weapon, because i think that is very dangerous. if you saw the crowd here, i know this is hard for some of you to cover. you can be hard in a positive way. it is ok. you do not have to have a nasty, negative, consultant driven campaign, and i refuse to campaign, and i refuse to engage
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