November 1, 2008 / by emptywheel

 

Ronald Reagan Endorses Obama, McCain Still Fraudulently Glomming Off Of Goldwater

McPrickly/Cheney by twolf

McPrickly/Cheney by twolf

Ruh roh, Ronald Reagan has formally endorsed Barack Obama for president! Okay, it is the non-zombie Reagan, Ron Jr., but still:

I assumed most people already knew that I had supported Obama. Anyone who has spent five minutes listening to my program would have known that. But if it helped to make it official, I’m happy to make it so.

This hot on the heels of the news that Dick Cheney, appearing at a Wyoming rally today, gave his glowing formal endorsement to John McCain.

The Salon War Room reports:

The vice president, who may still be a scary costume on future Halloweens even once he leaves office, told a Wyoming Republican event Saturday that he was "delighted" to support McCain and Sarah Palin. "I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Senator John McCain," Cheney said.

Whoo doggie. What a way for John Sidney McCain III to kick off the last weekend of his campaign. First, Ronald Reagan’s former Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein, one of the leaders of the ultra-influential Off The Record Club, flat out endorses Obama and says McCain isn’t fit for the office of President. McCain recovers by getting an endorsement, but it is from the only politician in America with a lower personal approval rating (15% last noted) than George Bush. And now Ron Reagan weighs in.

Very impressive.

In other news, as Marcy points out, John McCain is going to wrap up his campaign in Prescott Arizona.

I would suggest McCain’s decision to make the sentimental stop in New Hampshire, as much as the stop in Prescott, suggests McCain knows any stumping he does this weekend will do little good. Instead, he’s going to relive his glory days of surprise wins in New Hampshire; he’s going to try to elevate this losing bid in hopes it might some day have the same relevance as Goldwater’s 1964 presidential bid. McCain’s campaign stops this weekend are about McCain and his ego, not about mobilizing Republicans to go to the polls.

Yep, it is all about McCain’s ego alright. It always is with John McCain; he cares about only one thing in life, and that is himself. McCain constantly schleps into Prescott trying to lay claim to the mantle of Arizona’a own, Barry Goldwater. But McCain has no such claim, and he never has.

Unlike John McCain, who mindlessly gloms onto Prescott to falsely build himself up with the legacy of another, Barry Goldwater was a native son. Barry’s roots in Prescott were not false and fraudulent; they were real. Goldwater started and ended his campaigns on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse, smack dab in the middle of the historic downtown Prescott Town Square, because it was right across the street from the successor to the original Goldwater family store in Prescott.

The Prescott store was an immediate success. It was the first Goldwater store to carry a line of high-fashion goods and to adopt the motto, "The Best Always." At the insistence of Morris, who became manager in 1879, it began catering to ladies. Home fumiture, fumishings, and fancy goods rivaled liquor, tobacco, and flour. Among the store’s best customers were the bordello girls, who frequently purchased champagne at $40 a case. Morris soon became as indispensable to the community as to the store, practicing what he often said-that successful people had the moral duty to repay, by whatever means, the communities that had helped make them. It was a belief that Barry Goldwater would take seriously seventy years later when he pondered how best to repay his city of Phoenix for what it had given him.getimageexe.thumbnail.jpeg

Biographer Edwin McDowell points out that Morris and his father Mike, now fifty-five and referred to as the "old gentleman," set a high standard of community service. They were the first to pledge $5,000 in bonds for a railroad into Prescott, and Morris and two partners helped finance the construction of a railroad to Phoenix. Morris later helped develop mines and real estate throughout the territory and served as secretary of the Prescott Rifles, which protected the people from Indian attacks.

courthouse.thumbnail.jpgAnd then there was politics. Although only twenty-seven, Morris was elected mayor of Prescott in 1879 by an almost 2 to I margin. It was the first of his ten terms as mayor over the next forty-eight years. He also helped organize the Arizona Democratic party in the 1880s when the territory was under the control of a Republican administration. Known as a Jeffersonian or conservative Democrat, Morris later served as president of the twentieth Territorial Council and vice president of the crucial 1910 Constitutional Convention, which led to Arizona’s statehood in 1912. Following statehood, he was president of the Senate in the second Arizona legislature. He often said, and later repeated to his favorite nephew Barry, that if a man believed firmly in an issue, he should stay with it no matter what the odds or how heavy the criticism pounds, but he was determined to succeed at whatever he tried.

Over the decades, Goldwater’s grew into a statewide chain of very high end department stores (think Macy’s of the west) in Arizona, first under their predecessors, then Barry, and finally Barry’s brother Bob. As Bob Goldwater became older, the department stores merged into May/Robinsons in the early 1980s, and are now occupied by Macy’s.

Almost the entire time until Goldwater’s name merged into May/Robinson’s, Barry and Bob kept a small store open, operating at a loss, in the Prescott Town Square across from the Yavapai County Courthouse to honor the tradition and history of Goldwater’s in Prescott, because that is who they were and where they had come from. On a lighter note, all of the Goldwaters, including Barry, also knew what was on the opposite side of the Yavapai Courthouse from the family store, which was located on Cortez Street. That would be the infamous Whiskey Row on Montezuma Street, which had The Birdcage, The Palace, and Matt’s, hard drinking saloons one and all.

goldwaterhbo.thumbnail.jpgThat is the history of a man in love with and tied to Prescott. Barry Goldwater had everything to do with Prescott Arizona; John McCain has nothing whatsoever to do with the town, it’s history, or for that matter, Barry Goldwater.

John McCain is a dishonorable fraud; he was never close to Barry Goldwater, and he carries not one single ounce of his legacy. Barry Goldwater did not like John McCain; in fact, he despised him as an unworthy carpetbagger in Arizona. The direct descendants of Barry Goldwater are voting the conscience of their conservative grandfather, rejecting John McCain completely, and strongly endorsing Barack Obama. The reason is because John McCain is so far from the quality of man that Barry Goldwater was that it is laughable.

John McCain, I knew Barry Goldwater, Barry Goldwater was a friend of mine, and you sure as hell are no Barry Goldwater. Quit fraudulently and dishonorably holding yourself out as his heir.

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2008/11/01/ronald-reagan-endorses-obama-mcprickly-still-glomming-off-of-goldwater/