After being inundated over the past several days by media reports predicting the imminent implosion of a certain Arizona senator’s presidential campaign, my mind instinctively harks back to a time when this senator’s forecast was anything but gloomy. He was once the “war-hero,” the “maverick,” and the “straight talker,” never to be swayed by a radical conservative base or the Christian Right.

Truth be told, I myself voted for the man in the 2000 primaries despite being of a more lefty, progressive persuasion. His honesty and independence then seemed genuine, and at the time I reasoned, “Who can seriously question the integrity of a man who was tortured in a North Vietnamese prison camp for 5 and a half years?”

I must have reasoned wrongly because by the time 2004 rolled around, the Arizona senator was openly pandering to the very man who had so denigrated him in the 2000 primaries. Not only that, but also his half-hearted attempts since then to gain the support of the Christian Right only served to weaken his image as a “straight talker” whose position couldn’t be bought and sold for political gain.

Nevertheless, it would be unfair to judge him too harshly, for perhaps conservatives are no longer searching for the ideals that he once embodied. I’m here reminded of another senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater, who, during his heyday, shared many similarities with the current congressman. Besides holding the same congressional seat, both were pilots during wartime, both billed themselves as straight-talking mavericks, both sought to reform the Dept. of Defense, and both openly opposed the Christian Right (as mentioned above, the current senator reversed this position).

Goldwater won his party’s presidential nomination in 1964 but subsequently lost the general election to LBJ. However, he had a lasting effect on US politics by spearheading the rise of “new conservatism” that paved the way for the Reagan era 20 years later. Inherently suspicious of government, Goldwater was able to tap into a rising tide of popular conservative sentiment and connect with that movement. In doing so, he took his party in a radically new direction.

Goldwater’s movement had largely disappeared by the mid-1990s, supplanted by a newer, more religious form of conservatism marked by the infamous “Contract with America.” The current Arizona senator criticized the moneyed and religious interests of this newer movement and set out to redefine his party.

As time would have it, the “Contract with America” movement would collapse of its own accord roughly ten years later. And the “maverick” senator from Arizona has once again thrown his hat in the ring for the presidency, only this time he doesn’t seem to be quite as straight-talking anymore. Unlike Goldwater, he also lacks a clear vision for conservatism and the broad grassroots support needed to see it carried out.

With their cause a shambles, some conservatives are now looking back to that earlier Arizona senator for perspective and possibly a way forward. An HBO documentary by Goldwater’s granddaughter will be released on DVD in July. His 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative is being republished this year. And the Cato Institute is hosting an event tomorrow entitled “Barry Goldwater: Life, Liberty, and Legacy.”

I’m intrigued, but when you get right down to it, maybe Arizona just doesn’t have all the answers.