The Southern Strategy and Lee Atwater

[Riot]

Seems some of our younger Dee Tee members are unfamiliar with this well-known political methodology. No, it's not imaginary, the Republicans used it proudly and admit it.

Due to the political abandonment by southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats") of the Dem party, furious with Lyndon Johnson for signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - this set up a situation for the GOP capturing these southern voters angry with those two laws, enabling Richard Nixon to win. And the GOP has used it ever since.

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the Republican Party strategy of winning elections in Southern states by exploiting anti–African American racism and fears of lawlessness among Southern white voters and appealing to fears of growing federal power in social and economic matters (generally lumped under the concept of states' rights).

Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats), the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.

The strategy was first adopted under future Republican President Richard Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in the late 1960s.

The strategy was successful in some regards.

It contributed to the electoral realignment of Southern states to the Republican Party, but at the expense of losing more than ninety percent of black voters to the Democratic Party.

As the twentieth century came to a close, the Republican Party began trying to appeal again to black voters, though with little success.

In 2005, Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the previous century.

Although the phrase "Southern strategy" is often attributed to Nixon's political strategist Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it, but merely popularized it. In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, he touched on its essence:

Much more detail and specific examples in campaigns of the past 60 years in this long article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

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Bob Herbert, a New York Times columnist, reported a 1981 interview with Lee Atwater, published in Southern Politics in the 1990s by Alexander P. Lamis, in which Lee Atwater discussed politics in the South:

"Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist to the Republican Party.

He was an advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush (worked on campaigns) and Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater

[Riot]

Contemporary examples of the Republican "Southern Strategy" (or "dogwhistles for racists")

Reverend Wright

"Not a real American"

Where's his birth certificate?

"I'll take him at his word, if he says he's not a Muslim".

"palling around with terrorists"

Welfare president (this one is classic! Reagan started it)

Voter ID law changes "everyone who normally participates in society should have an ID".

When Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, he famously said that he realized that he'd lost southern "Dixiecrat" Democrats (who were against equal rights for Negroes) to the Democratic Party "for a generation".

He was wrong - they are still Republicans today, two and-a-half generations later. And the plutocratic, wealthy business arm of the Republican party (the "power" in Washington) actively courts their votes.

[Clip-Clop]

Is this like the VP stating publicly that the policies of their opponents will re-instate slavery in the South?

[OldDog]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Is this like the VP stating publicly that the policies of their opponents will re-instate slavery in the South?

You beat me to it.

In recent years, the term "Southern strategy" has been used in a more general sense, referring to the way in which political parties use cultural themes in election campaigns — primarily but not exclusively in the American South.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

"He goin' put y'all back in chains. He said he go'n' do nothin' 'bout stoppin' the practice of outsourcing."

Odd. I've not heard PennDelawareans speak in such a manner before this. When he finally got to outsourcing he forgot all about dropping the "g."

Opposing view from the innocent side.

http://youtu.be/dXK2JOY3NwE

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants

Opposing view from the innocent side.

http://youtu.be/dXK2JOY3NwE

Remember when The LAPD was found not guilty?

[Riot]

Sometimes I wonder if people have actually grown up in this country, gone to school in this country, have been actually living in this country for years.

[OldDog]

Dayum. I haven't even started my mixed martial arts training yet.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants