[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 95 (Friday, June 28, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E988]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NATIONAL DRAFT GOLDWATER RALLY

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                            HON. JOE WILSON

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 27, 2013

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, a week from today is the 
50th anniversary of an historic event in Washington, which helped 
launch a successful political revolution resulting in the development 
of the two-party system in the South.
  On July 4, 1963, I participated with a busload of Republican 
activists and Teen Age Republicans, TARS, for the National Draft 
Goldwater Rally at the DC Armory addressed by Senator John Tower of 
Texas, Congressman John Ashbrook of Ohio, and Governor Paul Fannin of 
Arizona. The bus was organized by the visionary J. Drake Edens, a key 
founder of the modern Republican Party.
  This event galvanized a movement, which has transformed the South 
culminating in 2012 with Republican legislative majorities in all 
states from Virginia to Texas and Oklahoma. Under the current 
President, the Southern states evolved from 49 percent population with 
Republican majorities to 100 per cent, 51 per cent Democrat for a 
century to zero, completing a 50-year shift. In 1961, State 
Representative Charlie Boineau of Richland County was the first 
Republican elected to any State office in the 20th Century in the State 
of South Carolina. In 1962, State Representative Floyd Spence of 
Lexington County became the first elected official of the Century to 
courageously switch parties explaining he felt more comfortable with 
Northern Republican philosophy than Southern Democrats. In 1964, U.S. 
Senator Strom Thurmond of Aiken County switched parties to support 
Barry Goldwater for President and he hired Tom Moss of Orangeburg as 
the first African-American staff member of a deep south U.S. Senator. 
Aiken County was a pioneer promoting local Republican candidates 
because of a high percentage of transplants from the Northeast and 
Midwest who worked at the Savannah River Site. South Carolina led the 
way for the South's first Republican legislative Speaker electing David 
Wilkins in 1994.
  On the national level, this movement fulfilled the dream of Senator 
Barry Goldwater in his 1962 book Why Not Victory? with the defeat of 
the world-wide communist threat and the liberation of dozens of nations 
inspired by Ronald Reagan's peace through strength.
  On the state level, South Carolina is a symbol of Republican 
achievement with the first Republican Governor, James Edwards, 
recruiting Michelin Tire Corporation of France that has resulted in 
South Carolina being the nation's leading exporter of tires. Governor 
Carroll Campbell attracted BMW to build a German manufacturing facility 
in Greer, S.C., which led to South Carolina to becoming America's 
number one automobile exporter and Governor Nikki Haley promoted Boeing 
for South Carolina to be a major exporter of 787 jetliners worldwide.
  In 2010, for the first time in 130 years, all statewide elected 
officials shifted to the Republican Party. The success was diverse with 
Governor Nikki Haley being the first female governor of South Carolina 
in 340 years and only the second Indian-American governor in American 
history. Tim Scott was elected to Congress as the second African-
American in 100 years, and with Alan Wilson, age 37, being elected the 
youngest Attorney General in America. The Republican Party today is a 
broad coalition inclusive for limited government and expanded freedom.
  I am grateful to have lived the Southern Republican Revolution, which 
has been so successful promoting a positive philosophy of limited 
government and expanded freedom abroad and at home. The future is 
bright for the principles of limited government as inspired by the 
Draft Goldwater Rally because it works. Equally we know that whenever 
big government is imposed, it fails and the freedoms of citizens are at 
risk.

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