How the GOP became the party of radicals, from an insider

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Apr 4, 2009
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Invasion of the Party Snatchers

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By Victor Gold

After four decades as a Republican insider, Victor Gold reveals how the holy-rollers and the Neo-Cons have destroyed the GOP. Now he's fighting to get his party back.

As a man who served as press aide to Barry Goldwater and speechwriter and senior advisor to George H. W. Bush (in addition to co-authoring his autobiography), Victor Gold is absolutely furious that the Neo-Cons and their strange bedfellows, the Evangelical Right, have stolen his party from him. Now he is bringing the fight to them.

Invasion of the Party Snatchers is a blistering critique not only of the Bush-Cheney administration but also of the Republican Congress. Gold is ready to tell all about the war being waged for the soul of the GOP, including the elder Bush's opinion of his sons work domestically and abroad, the significance of the newly elected Congress, and how Goldwater would have reacted to it all. Gold reveals, among other explosive disclosures, how George W. has been manipulated by his vice president and secretary of defense to become, in Lenin's famous phrase, a "useful idiot" for Neo-Conservative warmongers and Theo-Conservative religious fanatics.

Although there have been other books by dissident Republicans attacking the Bush-Cheney administrations betrayal of conservative principles, none have been by an insider whose political credentials include inner-circle status with Barry Goldwater and George H. W. Bush.

Review:
"Make no mistake: author Gold, a former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush and aide to Barry Goldwater, is one disgusted Republican. The GOP of the 2006 midterm election, he writes, is 'a party of pork-barrel ear-markers like Dennis Hastert, of political hatchet men like Karl Rove, and of Bible-thumping hypocrites like Tom Delay.' Gold looks to Goldwater, 'a straight-talking, freethinking maverick,' as the yardstick by which to measure just how far the party of Lincoln has fallen.

He traces the beginning of the end to the 1980 Republican National Convention and the presence of 'a militant new element...personified by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.' The other half of the equation, the neoconservatives, are embodied by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, 'two cuts from the same Machiavellian cloth.' In efficient prose, Gold scrutinizes a significant swath of recent GOP history, in particular Newt Gingrich's 104th Congress and the Bush II White House, without losing momentum.

He also has choice words for 'the Coulterization of Republican rhetoric,' the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street, and 'sideshow' legislation like the Flag Protection Amendment. Gold sees a promising future for the Republican Party, but not until they lose some major elections and are able to keep down a slice of humble pie; for those disillusioned with the state of the GOP, this quick, uncompromising polemic provides substantial support, along with a large dose of cold comfort." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:
The last real Goldwater conservative in America attacks the current state of his movement and his party.
Powell's Books - Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP by Victor Gold



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Victor Gold grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he attended the public schools, and Tulane University. After working as a reporter-correspondent for the BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) NEWS, he earned his law degree (J.D.) from the University of Alabama. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, 1950-52.


In 1958 he moved to Washington, D.C., and joined the public relations firm of Selvage & Lee. Six years later he became Deputy Press Secretary to Senator Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign.


In 1965 Gold opened his own political public relations firm in Washington, listing among his clients then-Republican House leader Gerald Ford and Senator Bob Dole. At the Republican conventions of 1968 and 1976 he worked with press secretary Lyn Nofziger on behalf of the presidential candidacy of then-California Governor Ronald Reagan. During the Nixon administration he served as press secretary to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew until January, 1973.


In 1980 Gold joined the staff of Republican presidential candidate George H. W. Bush as a speechwriter and senior advisor, a position he held during the Reagan-Bush campaigns of '80 and '84. He served on the Bush vice-presidential staff in 1981, and as a Bush advisor in the campaigns of 1988 and 1992. In 1992 he received the Distinguished Achievement Award for Political Communication from his alma mater, the University of Alabama.


In 1989 Gold served as a member of President Bush's election-oversight delegation to the first free Romanian elections.


A frequent speaker on the national political and campus circuits, Gold has also appeared on numerous network television shows. His articles, covering politics and sports, have appeared in NEWSWEEK, HARPER'S, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, PLAYBOY, CONNOISSEUR, READERS' DIGEST, NATIONAL REVIEW, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, and THE WASHINGTON POST.
 
Republicans just got tired of being the loyal opposition. Holding to conservative principles, both economic and political, hasn't won them an election since Eisenhower. Richard Nixon taught them that demagoguery and ruthless expediency were the paths to holding the reins of power.

Maybe they really learned it from Lyndon Johnson. Nixon was just the first modern republican to put it into practice.
 

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