A Quote by Rick Perlstein

Imagine a senator running for president whose positions included halving the military budget, socializing the medical system, re-regulating the communications and electrical industries, establishing a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans, and equalizing funding for all schools regardless of property valuations - and who promised to fire Alan Greenspan, counseled withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, and, for good measure, spoke warmly of adolescent sexual experimentation. That was Barry Goldwater, conservative.

Rick Perlstein

Quote Topics

Adolescent Alan All Americans Barry Budget Communications Conservative Electrical Establishing Experimentation Fire Funding Good Guaranteed Imagine Included Income Industries Measure Medical Military Military Budget Minimum Organization Positions President Promised Property Regardless Running Schools Senator Sexual Socializing Spoke System Trade Whose Withdrawal World World Trade World Trade Organization

Quote Author

Rick Perlstein
American - Historian
Born: 1969

Barry Goldwater once said, "I'd rather be right than president." I can't tell you how much I disagree with that Barry Goldwater.

Howard Dean

On trade, a Conservative government would challenge China's actions on canola and meat imports through the World Trade Organization and withdraw funding from the Chinese-run Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Erin O'Toole

This president [Barack Obama] is undermining our military. This president is more interested in funding Planned Parenthood than in funding the military.

Marco Rubio

Raising the minimum wage and lowering the barriers to union organization would carry a trade-off - higher unemployment. A better idea is to have the government subsidize low-wage employment. The earned-income tax credit for low-income workers - which has been the object of proposed cuts by both President Clinton and congressional Republicans - has been a positive step in this direction.

Paul Krugman

My favorite politician was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who reminded me of Tom Mix, and there wasn't any way to explain that to anybody.

Bob Dylan

In terms of my own plans, I anticipate supporting one of the three, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or John Kasich as our nominee. If they don't become the nominee, then I'm probably going to go to the voting booth and find someone else who's running as a conservative or perhaps just write in the name of someone I believe should become the president of the United States, who I could be proud of and who I believe is interested in balancing the budget, keeping America safe with a strong military, and is not willing to disparage fellow Americans, Mexican-Americans, Muslims, and so forth.

Mitt Romney

Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel... Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.

Irving Kristol

Harriet Washington, in 'Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,' documents the smallpox experiments Thomas Jefferson performed on his Monticello slaves. In fact, much of what we now think of as public health emerged from the slave system.

Greg Grandin

Private property in the instruments of production is an institutional device both for dispersing power and for securing effective organization of production. The only simple property system is that of a slave society with a single slave owner - which, significantly, is the limiting case of despotism and of monopoly. Departure from such a system is a fair measure of human progress.

Henry Calvert Simons

When the former Fed chairman was in, Alan Greenspan was in, there was a saying back in those days that you called the 'Greenspan put.' Any time the treasury secretary - for the Fed chairman - said something, the market saw that as good news, and it took off.

Scott Garrett

He was a superb military officer but he was also an extraordinarily gifted politician. That he was an unusually open, honest and no-nonsense politician did not make him unsuited for the profession, only uncommon. In uniform and in politics Barry's purpose was always the defense of freedom. And nobody before or since managed the task more ably or more colorfully than Barry Goldwater.

John McCain

Do you realize that at the moment we have Barry Goldwater fighting the Moral Majority, with The New York Times rooting for Goldwater? Times have changed.

William A. Rusher

Over the course of more than 200 years, it has found a right to equal education regardless of race. It has guaranteed an attorney and a fair trial to all Americans, rich and poor alike. It has allowed women to keep private medical decisions private. And it has allowed Americans to speak, vote and worship without interference from their government.

Herb Kohl

The people who are having the hard time right now are middle-income Americans. Under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried. They're just being crushed. Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a tax in and of itself. I'll call it the economy tax. It's been crushing.

Mitt Romney

Veterans come out of the military with a wide range of skills and the best training in the world. They shouldn't be struggling to find jobs in the civilian workforce, especially not when trade schools and businesses are struggling to fill high-demand, high-paying jobs in STEM-related industries.