Where New Right and Old Right Diverge

Goldwater’s blunt defense of O’Connor nomination draws line By JJllia Malone Staff correspondent of The Christian Science :lonitor Washington He has been called “Mr. Conservative.” “You may remember some of the things Barry Goldwater said in his [1964 presidential[ campaign honest, true, blunt things,” writes New Right strategist Richard A. Viguerie, who credited the Arizona Hepub lican senator with giving “vitality” to conservatism. But now Senator Goldwater is hurling some of that “blunt” language at Mr. Viguerie’s New Right for its outcry against Judge Sandra Day O’Connor. President Reagan’s choice for the US Supreme Court. “A lot of foolish claptrap has been written and spoken” about Judge O’Connor. said Goldwater last week on the Senate floor. (Earlier he had said other things, not printable in this newspaper, about Moral Majority ‘s opposition to Judge O’Connor. an Arizonan.) The flap over Mr. Reagan’s nominee, the first woman ever designated for the Supreme Court and an apparent moderate on women’s rights and abortion, has brought out the cracks in the conservative coalition . While conservatives unite on cutting government spending, they divide on the importance of the “social issues” like abortion. In fact, there are several strains of conservatives. according to Herb B. Berkowitz. spokesman for the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that tries to span all of the groups on the right of the political spectrum Goldwater and columnist William F. Buckley Jr. re present the