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Barry Goldwater Conservative Player
by Byron Liggett filed under Profiles on 2006-01-20 [Originally appeared in the January 9, 2006 issue of Poker Player]

Senator Barry Goldwater

Senator Barry Goldwater, of Arizona, is considered the patriarch of the modern Republican Right, whose most successful disciples include Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and George W. Bush.

Throughout the Vietnam War Era of the1960s and ’70s, much of the country embraced liberal politics and questioned traditional social attitudes. From the Civil Rights Movement to the Anti-War Movement, many Americans demanded change.

Senator Goldwater, whose unwavering allegiance to “Duty, Home, Country”, emerged the Champion of Conservatism.

Barry was born of risktakers. His grandfather, “Big Mike” Goldwasser, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. Convinced there was a fortune to be made as merchants serving the needs of gold hunters, he set sail for San Francisco from England in 1852.

Eventually the name was anglicized to “Goldwater” and the family settled in Phoenix, where Barry was born in 1909. Although his father was Jewish, he was raised in the Episcopalian tradition of his mother.

“My father was always fashionably dressed,” Barry remembered, “Some people called him a dandy because he… was elegant even when playing poker and billiards at the Arizona Club.”

Boy Barry was not a good school student and had a penchant for getting into mischief. Consequently, in lieu of public high school, his father sent him to StauntonMilitary Academy in Virginia. “Dad may have liked cards, but not wild ones”, he explained. Goldwater thrived on military discipline and values graduating at the top of his class.

He attended the University of Arizona in 1928, but left to work in the family’s Phoenix store when his father died the next year. Young Barry was a successful businessman. His idea for “antsy pants”, men’s underwear printed with large red ants, became a national fad. Young Goldwater initially was an isolationist and opposed America’s entry into WWII. But after Pearl Harbor, Goldwater joined the Army/Air Corps and became a pilot for the “Over-the-Hill Gang”, a unit of older pilots who delivered supplies to war zones. Eventually, Goldwater became a major general in the Air Force Reserves while serving in the Senate where he was considered a “Hawk” on military matters.

After the war, for Barry Goldwater merchandizing was mundane. He wanted action, and politics was the game. In 1949, at the age of 40, he won a seat on the Phoenix City Council. A target of his campaign was the illegal bookies and betting shops that thrived downtown. It was not gambling that offended Barry, but “the bookies and other hustlers who were cheating on taxes…”

Goldwater didn’t consider himself a gambler, by which he meant someone who made a living or spent much of their leisure time gambling. Because Barry was a bettor.

When a business leader boasted that Goldwater’s friend and political ally who was running for Governor couldn’t possibly win, Barry told him, “to put his money where his mouth was.” He did. Barry said he enjoyed collecting his wager when the underdog won.

Likewise, in 1952 Councilman Goldwater was ready for a bigger game. As the Republican candidate, he went headsup against incumbent Senator Ernest McFarland, Democratic Majority Leader. Following his upset victory, Goldwater later writes, “I went over to the Rosetree Bar in downtown Phoenix after the vote was counted and collected on a few bets.”

“They had a blackboard showing the odds… at one time the odds had been higher than 15-to-1 against me. We placed our bets then”, Goldwater recalls. Yet, he says, “I never looked on it as a gamble.

It was a way of showing confidence against the political odds.” He won by 7,000 votes.

It seems Goldwater didn’t consider Poker to be gambling either. He commonly flew his own airplane around thestate when campaigning. His trips often included meeting with a group of friends and playing poker. One journalist reported, “They spent most of the night playing poker in the Blue Room at the Copper Queen Hotel.”

One of the campaign souvenirs Goldwater used during elections was a specially printed deck of playing cards with the letters AU, H2O, the chemical symbols for gold and water, on the backs. His face appeared on the Kings, Queens and Jacks.

Senator Barry Goldwater served 5 terms, 30 years, in the United States Senate. He resigned for one term when he ran as the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1964. Critical of the Democrat’s “no-win” policy in Vietnam, he advocated stronger measures.

Democrats convinced the country the Arizona Senator was dangerous and Lyndon B. Johnson won in a landslide.

Ronald Reagan’s televised speech in support of Goldwater drew more contributions than any speech in political history. It also moved the actor into the Presidential wings.

Throughout his career, Goldwater never wavered from his conservative commitment to minimum government and maximum individual freedom.

He opposed the new welfare state, high taxes, and the Supreme Court making legislative decisions. He favored free enterprise and a strong military. He was anti-communist and All American.

Goldwater’s fundamental principals became the building blocks for a strong, new national Republican Party, one that would put five of the next seven Presidents in office. Senator Goldwater retired in 1986 and was recognized and honored as the Grand Old Man of the Republican Party and the Champion of Conservatism. When he died in 1998, America lost a hero.

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