IBD Editorials Perspective Reagans Speech Defined Conservativism For 50 Years By CRAIG SHIRLEY Posted 10/23/2014 06:29 PM ET youtube/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qXBswFfh6AY When Ronald Reagan delivered his televised Time for Choosing speech on Oct. 27, 1964, he spoke on behalf of Barry Goldwaters doomed presidential candidacy. Little did anyone realize that the speech, which you can read or view on our website, would become a defining moment for the American conservative movement. It was not the best of times for Ronald Reagan in the early 1960s. His beloved mother Nelle had died, and he mourned her for months. His career had gone into a tailspin with the loss of his GE contract. In 1953, Reagan was the perfect choice to host General Electric Theater on CBS and go on the road several weeks a year to give speeches and do the grip and grin with tens of thousands of employees. But by 1962, the calm and reassuring Reagan was giving speeches that were more and more political, and GE executives became more and more concerned. Ronald Reagan (center) leads a group that rallied in support of Sen. Barry Goldwaters presidential candidacy in San Francisco in July 1964. Rep.... View Enlarged Image Ronald Reagan (center) leads a group that rallied in support of Sen. Barry Goldwaters presidential candidacy in San Francisco in July 1964. Rep.... View Enlarged Image The company was doing millions in business with the federal government, including the TVA, long a favored Reagan target of criticism. Some suspected Robert Kennedy pressured GE to fire Reagan — and given the familys motto, dont get mad, get even, and RFKs notorious behavior as the family enforcer, it is entirely plausible. Reagans movie career had gone into a slow decline during and after World War II and came to a screeching halt in the spring of 1964, with the release of the remake of The Killers, based on the Hemingway novel. Reagan didnt even get top billing. That went to Lee Marvin, more like the dark and flawed and complicated leading man the studios wanted and not the happy-go-lucky boy next door that Reagan had often portrayed. Reagan hated this movie for a variety of reasons, including ending his movie career as a bad guy, where he is seen slapping Angie Dickinson across the face. It was the only movie in which hed portrayed a nasty criminal, and he didnt like it. Even in 1964, when he took over the hosting duties for Death Valley Days, based on the old radio show, it was a step down. The quality of the show was average, nothing like GE Theater. Reagan was down to his assets, mainly the house GE had built for him in the 1950s and a small ranch. And as his movie and TV career wound down, his appetite for the lecture circuit gained ground. As the face of GE and as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he had honed and sharpened his public speaking over the years, and in California in 1964 he often hosted or spoke to groups of young conservatives, anti-communist groups, but also the Junior League and womens clubs. The studios saw an aging leading man, but more and more audiences saw someone who spoke to their concerns about government, Vietnam, the Soviet threat and the culture. Reagan had already become a conservative before he switched parties in 1962, and so it made sense he would support Barry Goldwater over Nelson Rockefeller for the 1964 nomination. Delivering the speech at the 1964 GOP convention. View Enlarged Image Both were Western conservatives who loved the outdoors and despised the Eastern Establishment. And Nancy Reagans parents lived in Phoenix and were Goldwaters social friends and political supporters. Reagan gladly accepted being Goldwaters state co-chairman for California, but the Johnson tidal wave, which had begun a year before on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, was about to wash over America, including California. Goldwater was about to lose, in part because the American people were not going to tolerate three presidents in 11 months. The Speech was for Goldwater, but it was also for Reagan and American conservatism. The night of Oct. 27, 1964, Reagan was breathtaking, funny, memorable, quotable. He knocked liberals and the corruption of Washington, and the millions watching that night on NBC ate it up. He made the case for the individual over the state, and people who agreed with him had never heard it put in such a logical and common-sense fashion. That evening, he knew what was at stake. In a half-hour — no commercial interruption — the Californian spoke of war and peace and government, sometimes angrily but pointedly as well, about maximum freedom consistent with law and order. He quoted Alexander Hamilton — a nation that would prefer disgrace to danger is in need of a master — and deserves one. He quoted Churchill: The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move, we learn we are spirits — not animals. He proclaimed, This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. The live studio audience — which included Nancy Reagan — along with millions around the country, saw a Ronald Reagan theyd never seen. To cheers he said: And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of mans relation to man. He was humorous, saying Harvard was not the answer to juvenile delinquency. He slammed the Great Society and the corruption of the Johnson administration. Liberals were not ignorant, he quipped. Its just that they know so much that isnt so. He asked the question that terrified government bureaucrats: If government planning and welfare had the answer, shouldnt we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldnt they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? But the reverse is true. Each year, the need grows greater; the program grows greater. Reagan called government agencies the nearest thing to eternal life well ever see on this planet. It was, as many noted, the most successful speech by a private citizen since William Jennings Bryan, the notable exception being that Bryan never became president. But Reagan did. His remarks raised millions for the Republican Party and was a ray of sunlight in an otherwise bleak campaign. Even liberal columnists were impressed. He closed his peroration saying, You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. Well preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or well sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. Without the speech, there was no draft of Reagan to run for governor of California. Without winning in 1966 and 1970, he wouldnt mount his revolutionary challenge of Gerald Ford in 1976, losing the nomination by just a handful of votes. And if he didnt run in 1976 for president, he wouldnt run in 1980, winning, legitimizing conservatism, changing both parties, changing how Americans viewed their government, changing their attitudes about themselves, winning a Cold War and defeating an Evil Empire, freeing hundreds of millions, radically altering our world. Reagans speech was not futile, as he gave voice to conservatism in America for the first time and thereafter was rarely referred to as an actor. After 1964, Reagan was called a candidate and a governor and a president and a world leader. In reinventing himself, Reagan reinvented the Republican Party, America and the world. • Shirley is a Reagan biographer and also the chairman of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. Read More At Investors Business Daily: news.investors/ibd-editorials-perspective/102314-723228-reagan-speech-for-goldwater-was-conservatism-defining-moment.htm#ixzz3H5PoML3W Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:47:36 +0000
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