Former congressman Barry Goldwater Jr. talks about government policies and his views on today’s contemporary issues at the first College Republicans meeting on Thursday evening.

Byerek Quizon
Published On:Friday, September 4, 2009

Former Congressman Barry Goldwater Jr. helped the College Republicans kick off the school year on a hopeful note at their meeting Thursday evening.

The positive tone of the meeting echoed the tone of the Young Democrats’ meeting last week — just as Democrats are optimistic about their chances to take control of the state Legislature, Republicans are confident about their chances in 2010 to weaken the Democratic majority in Congress.

“I think this is a wonderful year for Republicans,” Goldwater said to a crowd of about 70 students. “There is nothing like a strong opposition to re-energize you, and I think President [Barack] Obama and this liberal Congress were the best things to happen to us.”

The president of the organization this year, political science and history junior Jessica Bolitho, said heated debates over health care and government spending could give Republicans the chance to take back many congressional seats in the 2010 elections.

“We’re really excited about 2010,” Bolitho said. “On a national level, we’re really seeing a swing back toward conservatism.”

Goldwater criticized Obama’s policies and the Democratic majority in Congress, accusing them of excessive government spending.

“It is absolutely amazing how much of a burden he has placed on the backs of American people in the short period of time he has been in office,” Goldwater said.

The former congressman also echoed the sentiments of current Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-District 5, at last week’s Young Democrats kickoff, that the health care debate has been muddled by Obama’s reluctance to endorse any specific reform plan.

“Every member of Congress you ask has no idea what’s in those five different bills,” Goldwater said. “It’s amazing that the president knows so much about it and the Congress knows so little.”

Accounting sophomore Corbin Smith said he is wary of being overconfident in the 2010 elections.

Republicans, he said, will have to attract more young people to the party, a task in which the College Republicans play a crucial role. Part of the problem, he said, is clearing up the false impressions many young people have that the party is elitist and narrow-minded.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about the Republican party,” Smith said. “Whenever I talk to other students, I find myself breaking up a lot of misconceptions.”

Goldwater’s father and namesake was a popular Arizona senator who was the Republican nominee in the 1964 presidential election, falling to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide.

His conservative brand of politics, manifest in his 1960 book, “The Conscience of a Conservative,” is widely seen as a blueprint for the modern Republican platform.

In keeping with the cause of limited government championed by his father, Goldwater said the government is unfit to run a universal health care program, pointing to Amtrak and the ailing federal post office as examples of government-run programs that have failed.

“The [U.S.] Post Office lost $7 billion last year and are closing down offices, and you, Mr. President, want the government running health care?” Goldwater said.