RUSH: David Brooks, our old buddy David Brooks is back, you know, he’s the conservative columnist at the New York Times. He is also the conservative half of the analyst team at The NewsHour on PBS. And in fact it was on The NewsHour on PBS on Friday, the coanchor, Judy Woodruff spoke with Brooks about the Republican repudiation of Donald Trump over his remarks about illegal immigration. And Judy Woodruff said, “You think the delay, the fact it took some of the other candidates some time to come forward with their statement that Trump needs to shut up and dial it back, do you think that makes a difference?”
BROOKS: What matters is that whether the Republican Party rediscovers where George W. Bush was on immigration, where John McCain was on immigration, where a lot of — where Bobby Dole, where a lot of — previous, uh, nominees have been. And the party has wandered, uh, into … in an anti-immigrant or an anti-immigration reform direction as a result of the rise of the talk radio part of the party.
RUSH: Well, there you have it! There you have it. Yes siree, bob. One day we’re finished, one day we’re through, one day we’ve seen our best days, one day it’s over, one day everybody’s forgotten about us — we’re not a factor; talk radio doesn’t matter — and then the next day we are the problem. We are so prominent and so influential that we are the problem. Well, that’s the answer, isn’t it? The Republican Party must reject talk radio and get back to where McCain and Dole were on immigration.
That’s the ticket!
When did they ever win anything?
Could somebody tell me?
Anyway, that’s… By the way, what is this? John Kasich. John Kasich’s gonna run, right? Has he…? (interruption) He hadn’t announced yet, though, right? (interruption) I was just thinking. John Kasich. (interruption) Right, right, right, right. Well, he was on with Howard Kurtz on Media Buzz. This is the show on Fox News where the media gets together and analyzes themselves, navel-gazing. He had Kasich on there and he was asked about “whether his brand of conservatism can hold with today’s Republican Party.”
That’s right.
Kurtz asked Kasich if “his brand of conservatism can hold,” i.e. win, “with today’s Republican Party. Distancing himself from being a ‘compassionate conservative,'” which is what George W. Bush said he was, “Kasich told Kurtz his image as a moderate will not be a detriment towards the nomination saying, ‘We haven’t had a right-wing nominee since Goldwater.'” Would somebody like to tell me what this means? “Kasich told Kurtz his image as a moderate will not be a detriment towards the nomination saying, ‘We haven’t had a right-wing nominee since Goldwater.'”
Um… (interruption)
I don’t know if he’s trying to say that Reagan was not right wing or conservative, or that he forgot, or if he’s from the school of Republicans that think every problem we have is owing to Goldwater’s defeat. You know, there were two things about Goldwater that have shaped conservatism, sadly. One of them is that Goldwater… You know, you’ve heard the old story that the Civil Rights Act 1964 would not have passed were it not for Republicans in the Senate, that a greater percentage of Republicans in the Senate voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats?
Well, Goldwater was not one of them. Prior to this, Goldwater had voted for two different Civil Rights bills. He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I think — correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I think — it was because of Title VII. He thought it was unconstitutional, and he predicted it was going to lead to things that were not good. He was not opposed to civil rights. It was a specific aspect. But it doesn’t matter. Barry Goldwater has become the symbol of, “The Republican Party is racist.”
Because he voted against the Civil Rights Act, and he was the nominee, see?
Since Goldwater was the nominee in ’64 and he voted against Civil Rights Act 1964, then that’s how the Republican Party gets its ideas of a racist, anti-black party. And then the Republican Party also associates Goldwater and conservatism with landslide defeats. So when you mention conservatism to the Republican Party, they think Goldwater. They don’t think Reagan, for example. They think Goldwater. They think 49-state sweep. They don’t think Reagan and two landslide victories.
So for Kasich to invoke Goldwater here, I’m not sure that I quite understand what his point is.