Pinocchio, Richard Carmona, and Senator Goldwater

The race for Jon Kyl’s US Senate seat in Arizona just got a lot more interesting when Richard Carmona, the Democrat candidate, staged an event in front of a statue of Senator Barry Goldwater and touted the endorsements of two members of Senator Goldwater’s family, daughter Joanne Goldwater and granddaughter “CC” Goldwater. Mr Carmona’s nose must have been growing when he attempted to paint himself as “Mr Goldwater” because Carmona is running against Jeff Flake, one of the most conservative members of Congress and a former Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute.

Senator Goldwater is fortunate to have had many relatives but, unfortunately, only a few of them shared the senator’s strong limited government philosophy. (His son Barry Goldwater Jr is one who does and he is supporting Republican Jeff Flake.) Some of the senator’s relatives, such as Joanne and CC, supported his more libertarian views, such as those on abortion and gay marriage, but those positions represent a very small part of Senator Goldwater’s overall views. The majority of Senator Goldwater’s views are the ones held by Republican Jeff Flake, not his Democrat opponent.

As one of the original founders of the Goldwater Institute I can attest to the difficulty of keeping track of the various opinions of Goldwater family members. The differences in some cases were extreme. When Senator Goldwater died his widow actually tried to take the Goldwater name away from the Goldwater Institute because of her views which differed greatly from the understanding that I and the other founders had regarding where the senator stood.

I believe Senator Goldwater was essentially a libertarian, but not just on the two social issues mentioned above. He believed in limiting government powers across the board. So does the Goldwater Institute.