Once I finally got to watch episode 2 last night on iTunes, Janie Bryant completely replaced Tim Gunn as my fantasy shopping buddy. She’s even from Cleveland, Tennessee, which is just 30 miles from my hometown. It could happen.

The houndstooth suit on Dr. Faye Miller took my breath away. Typically, I avoid using overwrought expressions like “j’adore!” but when I saw that suit, I clapped my hands in glee and exclaimed it aloud.

While I have a long-standing obsession with anything houndstooth. (Really, I do. I love the fabric.) The outfit was utterly perfect for the setting. Dr. Miller, who likely would have a doctorate in psychology since only undergraduate advertising programs existed at the time, would have been one of the very first women in her academic and professional fields.

This type of market data is very common to American consumers now, but in 1964 this was an idea out of left field. To be a woman championing such a radical concept as correlating relationships with our fathers to the brands we purchase was as extreme as the field got.

In the early 60s, black was not the foundation color of every woman’s wardrobe. Wearing something black-and-white-checked was on the cutting-edge. While it’s in a cut similar to something Doris Day would wear in a Rock Hudson rom-com, it is not a solid color. The check makes it edgy and bold without being threatening. Something that matches her professional field.

However, the accessories tone it down. Dr. Miller isn’t dressed as severely as Peggy, who is still finding her balance between woman and career-girl. Peggy is essentially wearing the female version of the suit. There’s absolutely nothing feminine about her outfit except for the little hair flip.

Dr. Miller’s blouse and chunky pearls feminize the outfit to the point that she’ll be taken seriously, yet doesn’t emasculate any of her colleagues. Her make-up is soft, and her hair style emulates what Joan sports, the epitome of 1960s sexy.

Seriously, I want this outfit. While it’s on the tad over-the-top side of stuffy DC, I would happily wear this exactly as it is. I’d likely replace the double strand of pearls with something a little chunkier, but otherwise it is perfect.

What if the book every conservative needs to read was published fifty years ago?

At only 100 pages, The Conscience of a Conservative has inspired conservatives for decades, yet there has been no revival of this book in the recent groundswell of conservative thought in the United States.

Written by Barry Goldwater in 1960, The Conscience of a Conservative built momentum for his unsuccessful 1964 presidential election. He may have lost that election, but the influence of his legacy continues to shape the conservative movement.

This classic political book should be required reading for anyone who attends a Tea Party. Goldwater’s slim manifesto still accurately explains our philosophy and political movement.

Far too many conservatives struggle to articulate why he or she identifies with the movement. It’s easy to express what we’re against: higher taxes, big government programs, the welfare state, and intrusion into our private lives. But what do we support? What does it mean to be a conservative?

Writing in a similar era when Republicans were also painted as the “party of no,” Goldwater opens his book by defining conservatism. He writes:

…the Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.

He also explains the difference between conservatives and liberals:

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature. The conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual need spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand—in the name of a concern for “human beings” –regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. They are moreover, in a hurry. So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society’s political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel “progress.” In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

Goldwater outlines the three aspects of what a conservative believes. All three should be memorized and understood by anyone claiming the label of conservative.

1. Every person is a unique member of human species.

“The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.”

2. The economic and spiritual are “inextricably intertwined.

“He cannot be economically free, or even economically efficient, if he is enslaved politically; conversely, man’s political freedom is illusory if he is dependent for his economic needs on the State.”

3. Each individual is responsible for his or her own material and spiritual development.

“The choices that govern his life are choices that he must make; they cannot be made by any other human being, or by a collectivity of human beings.”

The Conscience of a Conservative continues to cover the dangers of big government, states’ rights, civil rights, labor, education, taxes and spending, and education.

If busy conservatives only took the time to read the first chapter, “The Perils of Power,” “States’ Rights,” “Taxes and Spending,” and “The Welfare State,” the Tea Party movement would be much better off.

Again, if you’re searching for a book on the path that conservatives should take to restore our nation to the vision that the Founders intended, The Conscious of a Conservative is a smart place to start.

While Goldwater grew more libertarian and antagonistic towards social conservatives towards the end of his life, The Conscious of a Conservative is a fast read that articulately lays out the timeless case for conservative values.

Over the last fifty years, our goal still remains the same. The charge Goldwater wrote in 1960 still applies today:

Thus, for the American Conservative, there is no difficulty in identifying the day’s overriding political challenge: it is to preserve and extend freedom.

In a time when millions of Americans are seeking alternatives to the Big Government, Chicago-style tactics of the Obama Administration, conservatives should read Goldwater’s classic.

Cross-posted at Smart Girl Nation.