Nighttimer and others in numerous threads have constantly attributed the "loss of the South" by the Democrat Party to the Democrats' newfound commitment to civil rights in the 1960s, and more significantly, to the Dixiecrats hope to re-impose Jim Crow via the GOP?

Two questions:

Do the facts support this vision, or are there other plausible reasons?

Even if that explanation was accurate in 1970, is it accurate for the Southern GOP elements today?

Grace and peace, BD

Let me start with the second one first.

I think the point has already been made that, in 2005, the vast majority of the GOP is certainly not segregationist or racist in any way. Those fringe elements which are still racist or segregationist, however, are clearly more likely to support the GOP rather than the Democratic Party. The fact is that the tiny number of openly segregationist or racist Americans are also ultra-conservative on other issues. If they do not support some fringe third party, they will support the GOP rather than the Democrats. I'm sure you could find some oddball somewhere who is a segregationist or a racist who is also a Democrat, but that's not the pattern in 2005. It certainly was the pattern in 1960.

As far as the first question goes, here's a basic history of the Democratic Party which goes into this issue.

Link



The only thing I might add is that the failure of the Dixiecrats to form a viable third party, or to have a major influence on the Democratic Party, led many of them to turn to the GOP.

If you like, you can think of this as a philosophical battle over "states' rights" rather than over civil rights. I have to wonder why the strongest supporters of states' rights in 1960 or so wanted to use those rights to do something so evil.

Do the facts support this vision, or are there other plausible reasons?
So do you have alternative ideas BD, any claims that would invalidate their argument?
Something, anything?

Even if that explanation was accurate in 1970, is it accurate for the Southern GOP elements today?Obviously not any longer. Those attitudes are no longer prevalent and its not just because the GOP knows that without non white votes they cannot hold on to the electorate for much longer.

I'll try not to laugh outloud when it comes to the "Southern Strategy" conspiracy perpetuated even by people like Ken Mehlman (sp?).

Here are the voting facts in reference to the republicans and civil rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

The bottom line is that the Southern Strategy wasn't a racist notion, and wasn't designed to alienate anyone or divide by race.

Here's a brief history on the Southern Strategy, from our buddies @ wilkepedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

It had everything to do with what defines "Republicans" in reference to state's rights, not racism.

The truth be told, if the Democrats were so enthralled with civil rights, why was their voting record so poor?

If the Republicans were attempting to segregate white voters in the South, why was the Nation's most well-known racist group (the KKK) associated with the Democrats?
http://www.iupui.edu/~aao/kkk.html
need another?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan


This idealism has been perpetuated in large amounts for the past 30+ years, in order to keep minority votes with the DNC, regardless of whether Democrats have actually attempted to carry the torch of the minority cause... regardless of whether their ideals are aligned with the minority communities, etc. The GOP and Republicans often have values based initiatives that align themselves with the ideals of many blacks and hispanics in the United States. Gay marriage? Faith based initiatives? There are often similarities in ideals between the GOP and blacks/hispanics.
Here's a good article...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/conte...29065_mz013.htm

The bottom line is that a large part of US history was seeded in racist/sexist ideology, and politics has been (obviously) a part of said history. Does that mean that the GOP shouldn't garner minority votes? History basically should dictate the complete opposite...

I know. Our superior liberal brainwaves and media connections proved too much for even the RNC chairman. We rock like that.



The Southern Strategy not a racist strategy? Did somebody rig the history books? Could it possibly be that southerners did a complete 180 on the subject of slavery and racism after the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and Jim Crow laws passed by accident? This is laughable on its face, Aevans, but let’s follow your Wiki link.

There were more Democrats in the Senate and House at the time, so it’s not surprising a majority of them voting in favor of the CVA would be necessary for passage. However, what transcends party line here is the regional makeup of those yea votes in the House and Senate—with a few exceptions they nearly all hailed from the north.


Wiki is not your friend in this matter, Aevans. From your link:

In this same post you point out the Klan’s affiliation with the Democratic Party. I haven’t read one liberal/Democrat poster deny the Democratic Party’s racist origins and voting trends, but if you want to rewrite history from 1964 to the present as one where Republicans didn’t break away from their social liberal platform I would advise you against citing a reference that has Reagan praising the Klan’s founder.


If there’s any idealism going on it’s coming from threads generated in this forum that give the impression that the Republican Party is “owed” the black vote based on a political landscape 150 years old. The slaves were freed, thank God, and if their children owe any party their loyalty they’d best spend their clout like any other demographic bloc and vote for the party that best represents their interests now.


The GOP has as much a right to court minority votes as the next party. Of course, given the Republican Party’s early history one should ask the party would need to make inroads in African American communities if the racist Southern Strategy wasn’t so racist.

Good call. I forgot that was the most effective debating tool on earth. LOL...

Respective to the original House version, the senate version, and the senate version in the house, the support breaks down like this:
D-61%, R-80%
D-68%, R-82%
D-63%, R-80%

Although, it's statistically inarguable that the Republicans as a national body supported the legislation more than did the Democrats, the greater correlation is by region:
N-90%, S-7%
N-92%, S-5%
(info not provided)

As far as I can tell, support for the legislation had little to do with partisan politics. Looking only at the North, a greater percentage of support actually came from the Democrats.
N/D-94%, N/R-85%
N/D-98%, N/R-84%
(info not provided)

It is clear that the divide was geographical.

So despite sharing a party name with their Northern cousins, the southern Democrats were, for this issue, a party unto themselves. The southern Republicans (such as they were) seemed to be aligned more with the southern Democrats than with the Northern Republicans. Making any kind of comparison between Republicans and Democrats is faulty if you are going to lump all of the factions into two general parties.

A guy goes to bed and wakes up to find not one, but two new threads started in response to him. How flattering.

Anyone, and by that I mean ANYONE from George Will to Rush Limbaugh to President Bush to aevans176 who suggests the Southern Strategy was (and is) not based on exploiting America's racial issues for political gain is either delusional or deliberately closing their eyes to the facts. I would prefer to believe these individuals are just badly misinformed, but I tend to doubt it.

At what point did the Republican Party employ racist tactics? Let's focus on the area of voter intimidation.

1985
In Alabama, then-U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions probed three veteran civil rights activists for voter fraud in the Mobile area. In what became a national story, Albert Turner, a former aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Evelyn Turner and Spencer Houge Jr. all denied the charges that they had illegally obtained absentee ballots and forged voters’ signatures. The defendants, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted on all counts with less than three hours of deliberation. A year later Sessions revealed some of his motivations and attitudes during his controversial nomination for a federal district judgeship. Among other things, he admitted saying he thought the NAACP was “un-American.”

Jeff Sessions is now a U.S. Senator from Alabama. And a Republican.

1998
In North Carolina, GOP officials in Mecklenburg and Cumberland counties planned to videotape people in some heavily Democratic precincts, saying it was to prevent voting fraud. State GOP spokesman Richard Hudson said poll-watching programs targeted heavily Democratic voter registration precincts, not racial groups. However, as a result of complaints about the plans, the Justice Department sent out letters making clear that videotaping minority voters at or near the polls violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Despite the GOP spokesman’s claim, the Associated Press reported that a Justice Department official, speaking on grounds of anonymity, described such monitoring of voters as a phenomenon of the last 10 years. The official noted that it started in 1988 with uniformed security guards being placed in mostly Latino precincts in Orange County, California. “All of these moves are called ballot security moves, moves by plain citizens to keep illegal voters from the polls,” the official said, “but none targeted illegal voters. They all targeted minority voters and specifically threatened them with some dire consequence if there are problems with voter records.”

In Dillon County, South Carolina, several days before Election Day, GOP state Rep. Son Kinon mailed more than 3,000 brochures to black voters. The outside of the brochure read, “You have always been my friend, so don’t chance GOING TO JAIL on Election Day!” ... “SLED agents, FBI agents, people from the Justice Department and undercover agents will be in Dillon County working this election. People who you think are your friends, and even your neighbors, could be the very ones that turn you in. THIS ELECTION IS NOT WORTH GOING TO JAIL!!!!!!”

1990
In North Carolina, the North Carolina Republican Party, the Helms for Senate Committee and others sent postcards to 125,000 voters, 97% of whom were African American, giving them false information about voter eligibility and combining this information with a warning concerning criminal penalties for voter fraud. A lawsuit was filed and, in 1992, the various defendants and the Justice Department signed a consent decree. Among other things, the decree enjoined the defendants from intimidation of voters, as well as engaging in any ballot security program “directed at qualified voters in which the racial minority status of some or all of the voters is one of the factors in the decision to target those voters


2003
In Louisville, Kentucky, Jefferson County Republicans planned to place Election Day challengers at 59 voting precincts in predominantly black neighborhoods. Though party officials claimed the precincts were chosen without regard to race, the flyer recruiting volunteers specifically mentioned black labor unions as a “militant” force allegedly encouraging voter fraud.

2002
In Louisiana, flyers were distributed in African American communities stating, “‘Vote!!! Bad Weather? No problem!!! If the weather is uncomfortable on election day [Saturday, December 7th], remember you can wait and cast your ballot on Tuesday, December 10th.” In a separate incident, apparently targeting potential supporters of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Republican Party admitted to paying African American youths $75 to hold signs aloft on street comers in black neighborhoods that appeared to discourage African-Americans from voting. The signs said: “Mary, if you don’t respect us, don’t expect us.”

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16399

Not enough? Question the source of the information? That's okay. There's plenty more.

In 1961, Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona spelled it out in a speech in Atlanta to a regional gathering of Southern Republican leaders. "We're not going to get the Negro vote as a bloc in 1964 and 1968, so we ought to go hunting where the ducks are," he declared. School integration, he continued, was "the responsibility of the states. I would not like to see my party assume it is the role of the federal government to enforce integration in the schools."

Three years later, on his way to winning the Republican nomination for president, he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Democratic Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina responded by switching to the Republican Party. His 1948 segregation-based Dixiecrat third-party presidential campaign supporters followed him. In Mississippi the 1964 state Republican Party platform declared that segregation was "absolutely essential to harmonious racial relations." Thurmond played key roles in 1968, first in blocking the confirmation of liberal Democrat Abe Fortas as chief justice. Thurmond had gotten a commitment from Richard Nixon to appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court if Nixon was elected president. Thurmond played a key role in building and holding critical Southern support at the Republican national convention for Nixon to win the nomination. In the fall, Thurmond campaigned vigorously across the South, thwarting segregationist Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace's third-party candidacy and allowing Nixon to win most of the region.

Nixon's four appointees to the Supreme Court included current Chief Justice William Rehnquist, under whose leadership the court has steered a consistently conservative course. That direction has meant the continuous cutting back of the civil rights gains of the decade and a half after Brown.

Ronald Reagan paid tribute to the Southern strategy. He opened his 1980 campaign in the South at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, an essentially white festival and political gathering in the county where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 by the Ku Klux Klan. His subsequent talk of "welfare queens" removed any ambiguity.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/...thern_strategy/

By the 1950s, the Republicans' "party of Lincoln" moniker was all but meaningless. The GOP's leader, President Dwight Eisenhower, had testified before Congress against integrating the military and belittled the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools.

In his 1964 presidential bid Goldwater ran "Operation Dixie," which courted southern whites and ceded the black vote entirely. Goldwater lost badly, but four years later, the approach worked. Republican Richard Nixon won election in 1968 on a "Southern Strategy" that stressed "law and order" and tapped into white anxieties about black violence.

Nixon's plan furnished the blueprint for the campaigns of Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, both of whom wrote off the black vote and pursued white voters with coded racial appeals. In 1988 Bush tarred Democrat Michael Dukakis as soft on crime, famously using ads that featured a menacing black rapist named Willie Horton.

http://www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/2000/082900a.html

Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, riding the first tide of white backlash, opposed the 1964 civil rights bill, railed against big government, and championed states rights. At the Republican convention nearly all the Southern delegates backed him. Despite his landslide loss to Johnson, Goldwater deeply planted the seed of racial pandering that would be the centerpiece of the Republican's "Southern Strategy" in the coming decades. The strategy was simple: court white voters, ignore blacks, and do and say as little about civil rights as possible.

In 1968, Richard Nixon fine-tuned the strategy, picked the hot button issues of bussing, and quotas, adopted the policy of benign neglect and subtly stoked white racial fears. Ronald Reagan picked up the racial torch by launching the first major systematic attack on affirmative action programs, and gutting many social and education programs. And though Republicans like to tout Ronald Reagan for signing the bill in 1983 that made King's birthday a national holiday, they conveniently forget that Reagan signed the bill grudgingly, and only after years of mass pressure to get the holiday.

In 1988, Bush, Sr., made escaped black convict Willie Horton the poster boy for black crime and violence and turned the presidential campaign against his Democrat opponent Michael Dukakis into a rout. Bush and Reagan's thinly disguised racial salvos were too much even for Colin Powell. In his autobiography, My American Journey, the general called Reagan "insensitive" on racial issues, and tagged Bush's Horton stunt, "a cheap shot."

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/17581/

What about how dismally Republicans perform on issues important to African-Americans?


According to the NAACP's mid-term "Federal Legislative Report Card" for the 108th Congress, made public this week, 228 Republicans in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives and all 52 in the Senate earned Fs. Only one Republican, Rep. Mary Leach of Iowa, got as high as a D, voting in support of black causes 65 percent of the time.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) set the tone for the GOP with the lowest grade received by any senator, an F, voting with the NAACP only 4 percent or just once. That issue was to give more money to states, which passed 97-3. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky got an F with 7 percent. Senate Republican Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, also got 4 percent.

Only 10 others out of the 100 senators received 4 percent. They included former Republican Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, John Kyl of Arizona, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Larry Craig of Idaho, Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Craig Thomas of Wyoming.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), got an F with 15 percent. Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) got an I for incomplete (he votes only in case of a tie), House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) got an F with 25 percent.

http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news...te.pl?20040202k
http://www.naacp.org/inc/docs/washington/1...report_card.pdf

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the tipping point for the solidification of the Republican Party as a White man's party. Republican Senator Everett Dirksen saved the day for President Lyndon B. Johnson, but it is hardly a coincidence that many of the Southern Democrats followed Strom Thurmond into the open arms of the GOP.

"States rights" has always been a thinly-veiled euphemism for keeping the federal government from intruding into both school segregation and civil rights in the South. Ditto for "law and order" which typically meant keeping Black criminals like Willie Horton locked up or dead. Take your pick.

Barry Goldwater and other far-right Republicans made the conscious decision that there were votes to be gained by turning a blind eye to racism and embracing the segregationist Southern Democrats as their own. George W. Bush signaled early on that he would continue this pandering to bigotry when in 2000 he gave a speech at Bob Jones University.

Feb. 3, 2000 | Self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush spoke Wednesday morning at Bob Jones University, a Greenville, S.C., school that bans interracial dating on campus.

"The governor doesn't agree with that policy," noted Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "But this is a school that has a lot of conservative voters, and it's a common stop on the campaign trail."

That won't be enough to satisfy critics, including fellow conservatives. "It's one thing to lurch to the right. It's another thing to lurch back 60 years," said Bill Kristol, editor and publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard. "You could make the case that 'compassionate conservatism' died Feb. 2 when Bush appeared at Bob Jones U."

http://archive.salon.com/politics2000/feat...2/03/bob_jones/

Now that Bob Jones University has reversed its ban on interracial dating maybe it's not so bad Bush went pandering for the votes of bigots. But it's awfully hard to forget he went there in the first place.

But that's typical for a Republican like Bush. Being on the wrong side of race is a place they seem quite comfortable residing.

I saw your sarcasm and raised you pedantry and absurdity. Most effective way I know to “debate” sarcasm, thank you.


My bad. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I read Davis’s name. I feel so much better saying Reagan choose the site of the modern Klan’s founding to praise the president of the racist Confederacy. I suppose being factually correct counts for something.


States rights was part of early America’s political vernacular but lost its original meaning once the racist south co-opted it as a justification for a war of attrition. As a result today states rights can mean both federalism and a “code word for the politics of resentment, of which racism provides the fuel.” You really ought not to provide links for articles that completely contradict your arguments.


Adages won’t help, either. Geography had everything to do with the south’s “peculiar” institution, entrance into the union, the Civil War, and the CVA. There’s nothing coincidental about racist, conservative Democrats holding a majority of seats in the south and abolitionist, liberal Republicans holding a majority in the north just as later there would be no coincidence about Nixon adopting Thurmond’s States Rights campaign.



What next? Will you keep up the charade and go as far as saying Thurmond was vilified by liberals dating as far back as 1948, that despite doing everything in his power to make certain his illegitimate daughter wasn’t treated equally under law he was just a diehard federalist to keep the racist underpinnings in the Southern Strategy from sticking to your party?


Is that why Republicans shake their heads when Democrats propose/sign bleeding-heart legislation, support Affirmative Action, and generally concern ourselves with minority rights to the extent that we compromise the nation’s security by speaking against the Patriot Act? This may sound crazy to you but as one of those idealism-hooked minorities I wouldn’t think twice leaving the Democratic Party once it was clear it no longer represented my interests. I hope you could do the same. I can respect Thurmond for that much. I wouldn’t be doing my party any favors by telling it it doesn’t get more votes from a certain demographic due to the RNC’s powers of delusion.


You’ll have your hands full with NT’s post.

Re Ronald Reagan and racism, I recall reading about how the young Ronnie was inculcated against racism, given that his own father and his father's father had to endure the "No Irish Need Apply" and the "No Irish Allowed" signs.

And for more on Ronnie and racism [or the lack thereof], his words from his 1967 debate with RFK [http://online.logcabin.org/news_views/reading-room-back-up/Articles_61204.html]:

"I happen to believe that the greatest part of the problem lies in the hearts of men. I think that bigotry and prejudice is probably the worst of all man's ills, the hardest to correct... Now, we've found it necessary to legislate, to make it more possible for government to exert its responsibility to guarantee those constitutional rights. At the same time, we have much more that can be done in the area of just human relationships.

"I happen to bridge a time span in which I was a radio sports announcer for major league sports in our country, in athletics, many years ago. At that time the great American game of baseball had a rulebook whose opening line was: 'Baseball is a game for Caucasian gentlemen.'

"And up until that time, up until World War II, there'd never been a Negro playing in organized major league or minor league baseball in America. And one man defied that rule — a man named Branch Rickey of one of the major league teams, and today baseball is far better off and our country is far better off because he destroyed that by handpicking one man and putting him on his baseball team, and the rule disappeared.

"Now I don't say this is the only answer, but we must use both, and I think the people in positions like ourselves, like the senator and myself, like the president of the United States, can do a great deal of good, perhaps almost as much as proper legislation, if we take the lead in saying those who operate their businesses or their lives on a basis of practicing discrimination and prejudice are practicing what is an evil sickness. And that we would not knowingly patronize a business that did such a thing, and we urge all right-thinking people to join us and not patronize that business. Soon we will make those who live by prejudice learn that they stand alone."

Whoa now. I believe that anyone making claims first has to have proof to base those claims on. In effect you would first have to validate the argument being that it is not only a non-accademic statement, but quite preposterous. can anyone please post information on "Dixiecrats trying to enact new Jim Crow laws" ???



You are correct to say that these attitudes are no longer prevelent, however I wouldn't say that it was in anyway because the GOP figured it might gain a new constituency out of the whole thing. That is just as prejudicial as any amount of racism. However if you have evidence of this then you may produce it as well.

It is very disturbing to see people judging Republicans as racists just because they are Republicans., which is what this topic seemed to do from the get go.

I would like to answer the questions at hand but it would be akin to answering a question like "How often do you beat your wife?"

Can someone please tell me, what are "black causes?" Oh, that's right. If you don't believe what we believe, then you're an "Oreo" or an "Uncle Tom." And if you happen to be white and don't toe the white man's party line (as it were), instead of a black person calling you such things as Oreo and/or Uncle Tom, some of your white fellow Americans will call you a "race traitor." Newsflash! Neither set of evil, mischeivous, little cretins, get to define who and what we are. And please spare me the "racism" rhetoric, as I don't hear Jesse and Rev. Al being taken out back to the woodshed for "hymietown." So given the hyprocrisy, silence would seem the best course, at least for those who even begin to have what one could a rather doubtful grace.

And re Reagan and Neshoba: (1) THE political event at that time in Mississippi was the Neshoba County Fair, (2) Carter had barely won the state in the prior election and so Mississippi was considered a battleground state, (3) Bruce Babbitt and the National Governors Association were also speaking of "state's rights" at that same time, and (4) Reagan's schedule was "flip-flopped" because it was thought that if he appeared before the Urban League first and then at Neshoba, that the signal would be that he didn't mean whatever it was that he was going to say before the Urban League [meaning that the flip-flop was not send the message that more than a few here are claiming was the intent].

Now back to hypocrisy. The words of Lisa Gladden:

"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."

Ms. Gladden is an elected black Democrat from Maryland.

And we can add Lee Brown. Said that Orlando Sanchez wasn't a true Hispanic [whatever that means]. John Castillo, a rather prominent and powerful city councilman [Houston] was "forced" to withdraw his support of Mr. Brown following the rather racist attacks on Mr. Sanchez.

And we can add Bill McKinney, who lost both his and his daughter's seats in the Georgia legislature after blaming his daughter's problems on some imagined Jewish conspiracy ["This is all about the Jews."].

And by the way, we have the CRA of '65 because of Everett Dirksen [and don't believe me, just ask the NAACP][some of what he said at the time: "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!"].

And by the way, education? Please spare me the "it's for the minorities." No, it's for your union vote, and if you backed vouchers, there goes the NEA [for starters].

And, welfare queens. Racist? Tell that to Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

And who was courted to take Wellstone's seat? The near rigor mortis Mondale, or the black Alan Page?

And for a few words from Larry Elder [http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/larryelder/2003/06/05/170198.html]:

"The Democratic Party relies on the massive black vote, and does so by creating this "victicrat" mentality. In a "Spirit of Democracy Symposium on Diversity," the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation complained about the failure of African and Caribbean immigrants to see themselves as black, and thus, recognize the "racism" they face in the job market. The Washington Times' Steve Miller writes, "U.S. black leaders have failed to get African and Caribbean immigrants to think of themselves as 'black' and have created a rift among the groups." Miller quotes William Spriggs, executive director of the National Urban League Institute for Opportunity and Equality: "'Black politicians . . . haven't been able to get (black immigrants) to buy into what white America is all about, about what white privilege is. Immigrants don't come here with that understanding. We have to change our language to let them know that these are their problems.'"

Here's the problem. African and Caribbean immigrants do well. According to the Associated Press, income for blacks from the Caribbean and Africa averages $40,000, $7,000 higher than "African-Americans." They also have more education, suggesting -- gasp -- a link between education and income. In short, unlike many indigenous "African-Americans," blacks from the Caribbean and Africa do not see themselves as "victicrats.""

And from Joseph Farah [http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44019]:

"When Senate Democrats successfully blocked three of President Bush's nominees for federal appeals-court judgeships in a 40-hour debate initiated by Republicans, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told reporters that he would continue to oppose any "Neanderthal that is nominated by the president for any federal court."
***
Kennedy was referring to men and woman like Miguel Estrada, a Hispanic, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, a woman, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl, a woman, and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, a black woman.

Kennedy had demonstrated his utter contempt for women in the past – for instance, by leaving a drowning woman and the scene of an accident. But it seems to me Kennedy was speaking in racist code language here. Could "Neanderthal" be the new "N" word he and his colleagues use to discuss minorities who are disloyal to their Democratic Party patrons and others who leave the "progressive plantation"?"

And then there's [http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=762]:

"Yesterday, during the Sunday morning talk shows I received a call from a friend - a Black professional Democrat - and we discussed the brouhaha over Senator Trent Lott.

This person was articulate about the fact that the quest to have Senator Lott's hide was a political undertaking that by itself would not reap any real benefits for those individuals who are genuinely concerned about ending America's racial divide. And this person explained that members of the Black political establishment and professional Black Democrats know, better than anybody, about the racial glass ceiling that exists in their own party. I posed a question, for this person which really goes to the crux of the matter for me. I asked, "Do you think that there is any difference in the way that White Democrats and White Republicans feel and think, in their hearts and minds, about Blacks?" The answer I received was, " No, not really. Some say it is often a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. But who is really the lesser of the two evils? You have to look at the Republican and Democratic parties in the same way that you look at racism as it existed in the North and South. One side openly doesn't give you s--- and the other side says it does, but really doesn't give you s---. White men run both political parties and deny opportunities for advancement to qualified Blacks. So, who is really the lesser of two evils?"

And if that doesn't tickle your fancy:

"Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a strongly worded letter to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association, complained loyalty isn’t rewarded by hiring of Black media and political consultants for polling, media buying, merchandising or other campaign work.
***
"We need to take the gloves off and tell it straight," said Rep. Earl Hilliard, (D-Ala.). "The Democratic Party has discriminatory practices. Not only in their hiring practices but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is structured to discriminate. Were tired of being discriminated against and being taken for granted.""

And back to the main article again:

"Again, it is no secret. The very same Black political leaders out front in the quest to oust Senator Lott, mumble, on a weekly basis about the racism that is practiced within their own party. But the sum of the arrangement between most Black professional Democrats, its political establishment, and the White Party leadership is that these Blacks on the inside won't ever expose to the masses of Black people the full extent of the blatant racism that they experience, which is exactly the same treatment that many Blacks, in corporate America receive. No difference, other than the pr charade that Democrats have perfected, relative to the masses. Silence and loyalty in the face of mistreatment, in exchange for access, a little progress, and a paycheck. As an example of how it works, I wrote at BlackElectorate.com on March 3, 2001, in an op-ed called, "On Senator Byrd And 'White Niggers'", about the deafening silence from Black Democrats after Senator Robert Byrd (W.VA) used the word "nigger" in a nationally-televised interview on Fox News Sunday:

...could it be that Black people have assigned a new qualification to Whites who use the "n-word" - that somehow it maybe OK for a White man to use the term "nigger" provided that he had the letter "D" affixed to his name indicating his political party affiliation.
***
In the entire week that I have spoken to Blacks that I know about the Lott controversy, not a single person has said that they were surprised by what came out of Senator Lott's mouth. Nor has a single person expressed their conviction that White Democrats are any less racist than White Republicans. And this includes the views of Black Republicans who make the case that racism abounds on both sides of the political spectrum. Armstrong Williams, Star Parker, Thomas Sowell and John McWhorter - leading black conservative opinion leaders - have all criticised Senator Lott for his comments. But what has been the Black Republican/Conservative motive? Has it really been a quest to stamp out racism wherever it appears? Or have their pens been guided by a short-term need to put out a fire that threatens not only their own credibility as conservatives but also the inroads that the movement was making within the Black electorate, via the Republican Party?"

And then there's Mr. Contreras [http://www.voznuestra.com/PoliticalWires/_2002/_December/22]:

"President Bill Clinton, declared the first “Black President” by Black writer Toni Morrison, was sued as Governor in federal court for not enforcing the Voting Rights Act in Arkansas which he governed for 8-years. Can the reader name one high-ranking Black that Clinton appointed to any meaningful job, like, say, the Supreme Court? Ask Secretary of State Colin Powell or National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice if they recall any. The Democratic Party and the press overlook these Clinton defects.

Democrat Vice-President Al Gore ordered Black Secret Service agents to stay away from him during his Presidential campaign so they wouldn’t appear with him in photographs, according to a lawsuit filed by Black Secret Service agents. What else could we expect from the son of an arch-segregationist U.S. Senator of the Fifties and Sixties? The press hardly said a word about their complaint, nor did Jesse Jackson.
***
200 years of bigotry and racism has permeated the Democratic Party since its founder Thomas Jefferson power-tripped his Black slave mistress (or mistresses) for his sexual pleasure, then, never freed his slaves. Blacks were stupid, Jefferson wrote. He also wrote that Blacks “secrete (urinate) less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor.”

The Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and National Chairman Terry McAuliffe has never lifted a finger against Jackson, Cynthia McKinney, her father and, of course, every Black anti-Semite, be they the New Jersey Poet Laureate, or Louis Farrakhan, or Presidential candidate Al Sharpton. If I were a Democrat, I would be very “proud” of that record.

Republicans proved in the Lott affair that we can rid ourselves of our own dry rot, just as Democrats prove every day that they can’t or won’t rid themselves of their own evil dry rot."

Sorry, one more:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1147682/posts

Ms. Rice is an attorney, a woman, and a "black" American.

Sorry, even one more:

http://blackgenocide.org

And if you think them loons, think again. India had to revise its laws because most of those humans being aborted were female ["A report from Bombay in 1984 on abortions after prenatal sex determination stated that 7,999 out of 8,000 of the aborted fetuses were females." See, Zeng Yi et al., "Causes and Implications of the Recent Increase in the Reported Sex Ratio at Birth in China," Population and Development Review, 19:2 [June 1993], p. 297.); oh, and that adds a whole new meaning to abortion being a means to "female liberation"]. So, in order to address the gender imbalance in the population, abortion was kept legal, but physicians and/or facilities are prohibited from conducting gender identification tests.

Why yes, by gosh by golly I do.

QUOTE

I agree with Nighttimer and others who posit that for a substantial portion of the Dixiecrats, racism was the overriding political concern. Beginning with Truman and for the next 20 years, white supremacist racism was gradually mitigated in the Democrat Party. However, I will disagree that white supremacist racism found a comfortable home in the Republican Party.

So, why did the Dixiecrats go Republican? Because, with the removal of white supremacist racism from the political field, other political considerations come into play. The South has never been fertile ground for unions. Hippie culture found very little traction in the South, the elitist anti-militarism of the Vietnam era was deeply offensive in the region of the country with the most military bases, military personnel and families. The attacks on traditionalism that primarily came from those aligning themselves with the Democrat Party, all of these factors explain why the Dixiecrats went to the Republicans.

Not because they were all unrepentant racists bent on reviving the plantation, but simpy because with racism off the table, for most, the Democrats had nothing to offer. Byrd is an exception, but not because he's a repentant racist. No, for him, power is even more important...

Grace and peace, BD

Uh...so where did it go?



WHAT???

Wait a minute. Hold everything. Are you seriously trying to tell me that white supremacist racism has been removed from the political field? Completely and totally eradicated? There is no racism (white, supremacist or otherwise) in contemporary American politics circa 2005?

I don't know whether to laugh, sneer, start drinking heavily or smoke some of whatever it is you're having.

So I'll do all four.

WHOA... Nightimer. Bad, Bad, and worse job of discussing what I referenced specifically as the Southern Strategy, referring to the shift of Democrat and Republican tides in the south and the "strategy" that people coin as racism, but never had tones any more racially-centric than the DNC strategy...

Your posts have everything to do with racism, but nothing to do with even this thread. Your posts reference singular acts ranging from 1985 to 2003. Is that when the shift of voting trends happened in the South, or even what is meant by "Dixiecrats"?? Good Lord No ....

From Wikipedia...
The term Dixiecrat is a portmanteau of Dixie, referring to the Southern United States, and Democrat, referring to the United States Democratic Party. Initially, it referred to a 1948 splinter from the party: for over a century, white Southerners had overwhelmingly been Democrats, but that year many bolted the party and supported Strom Thurmond's third-party candidacy for president of the United States. Over the next several decades, as the white South slowly re-aligned from the Democrats to the Republicans, the term came to have a broader usage, including, for example, with reference to the members of the Electoral College who in the election of 1960 voted for Byrd rather than Kennedy, or the white Southern voters and electors who in 1968 supported Wallace. The term has also been used to refer to conservative white Southerners who remain within the Democratic Party, and those who were formerly Democrats but now identify as Republicans.....

Your coined incidents that happened as if there weren't racist acts by Democrats... Nighttimer, that is just plain absurd. Look at the voting records... very few Democrats during this era were for the Civil Rights act and/or any other race-based initiatives.

Want to know about Democrats and racism?? (what I could dig up in just a few minutes... it's not hard)
http://members.tripod.com/~GOPcapitalist/democratrecord.html

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/owens/02/racism.html

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=383

http://www.civilwarhome.com/kkk.htm

http://www.gopusa.com/opinion/mz_0808.shtml

Seriously.... I don't have time to entertain parlor tricks...
Democrats don't use race in their favor??? How about race baiting??...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1141383/posts

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2005/10/...ias-complicity/

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_buzzcha...00509230741.asp

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/Articles...e%20Baiting.htm

http://absentee.redstate.org/story/2005/11/16/14214/665


This thread implicitly states "dixiecrats go GOP...". No one ever said that race isn't a part of politics, but implying that the GOP is the only party that is complicit to entertaining race is absurd, possibly even obtuse. I believe, that this period in time is no different than any other... politicians will do what sells... and use race like any other factor in an election to win.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed 289-126. If Democrats had 60% of the seats in the House how did the Civil Rights Act pass? Plus a Democrats proposed, introduced, and signed the Civil Rights Act. Very few? Come on, that's just not true. In 1964 the Democrats ran the man who signed the Civil Rights Act against a man who voted against it, clearly the national party wasn't that racist.

I think it's an over-simplification to attribute Southern Democrats leaving the party only to race issue but it was a major reason. In the Senate, Northern Democrats with one exception voted for the Civil Rights Act and Southern Democrats with one exception voted against the Civil Rights Act. There was a major split in the party and with the right-ward turn of the Republicans, nominating Goldwater and Reagan, they were naturally the party for White Southern Democrats to leave to.

Ummm... the Democrats held 60% of the votes!!!... it's not really an oversimplification if you're discussing party lines. 75% of the Republicans voted for the act, while 61% of Democrats voted for the act...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Ok, if more Republicans voted for the act as a percentage, and nearly all Southern Congressman voted against it, why on earth would Southern Whites migrate if it were left alone to race? The split was largely geographic, but frankly, if there weren't any other mitigating circumstances, the votes wouldn't have changed...

Allow me to remind you what you seem to have forgotten you wrote, aevans176.



That is exactly what I did. I provided direct links to the GOP and racism.Your refusal to accept the facts as presented is unfortunate, but far more indicative of you being "obtuse" than I. Nor is this thread about racism by Democrats and I never said Democrats don't have their share of racists among their ranks and have not or do not attempt to intimidate and disenfranchise Black voters.

It's just that Republicans do it better, more frequently and their own party chairman has apologized for it.

I laid out in detail how Barry Goldwater pandered to Southern bigots angered by civil rights and the blooming of the Southern Strategy. Certainly many of the Democratic senators of 1964 from the South were opposed to civil rights. Who could deny that. But how can YOU deny that the Republican senators of 2004 as cited in the NAACP report card have an equally abysmal voting record on issues important to African Americans?

That is not to say that the party of Lincoln is inhabited by bigots. There are no shortage of Republicans that are kind, compassionate, forward-thinking and committed to racial progress for ALL Americans. We may differ on how to achieve this objective. Certainly the NAACP and the current Republican-dominated Senate do.

However, you are engaging in revisionist thinking of the highest degree aevans176 in your persistence that there is no evidence of racism in the GOP's Southern Strategy. It was and the GOP benefited from it. Okay. It happened. Now let's move on.

That's what RNC chairman Ken Mehlman wants to do and why he apologized for the Southern Strategy. If he can own up to the racist pandering in the GOP's past why are you having such a struggle doing likewise?

You’ve gone from “what does geography have to do with” describing the Democratic vote on the CVA to a "mitigating" circumstance that brought about 90%+ of northern Democrats by jaellon’s calculations. It’s an improvement.


I don’t bother responding to posts like KivrotHaTaavah’s because in addition to not using quotes it’s impossible to disprove the electorate has voted racists into office for both parties from the country’s inception.

Let’s go along with your skewed insistence that playing on the racial bigotries and paranoia of southern voters doesn’t constitute a racist tactic (The bottom line is that the Southern Strategy wasn't a racist notion, and wasn't designed to alienate anyone or divide by race). Why don’t you come out and say Thurmond and the Dixiecrats weren’t racist?

It is simply the erosion of morality.

Christians said that the world would embrace insanity and the southerners can see it walking down the street now. Even African-American southerners are joining white-southerners in denouncing liberal licentiousness.

"Liberalism" didn't need to be a bad ideology but too many leftists - that the southerners were fearing - are running the Democrats.

Unfortunately the Democrats will not embrace morally sound values.

Man/husband, woman/wife, raising decent and morally sound children. It is called "the family."

Pretty simple math.

And when it comes to business, the GOP knows how to run the numbers.

Ken Melhman doesn't speak for every Republican in America. That's ludicrous... that's like me using Zell Miller as the posterchild of the DNC... absurd.



The 2004 NAACP Report Card is a SOURCE? Come on... You then might as well accept a Republican using the National Review as an "unbiased source". This source, led at the time by a man who calls black conservatives "puppets"... great. You wonder why conservatives don't care about the NAACP...

http://washingtontimes.com/national/200407...03848-4561r.htm

Then, the SAME GUY said that it was wrong to use "stereotypes and caricatures"..."just like burning crosses"...
http://www.naacp.org/news/2004/2004-11-19-1.html

Looks like 2004 was tough for the NAACP....

Good job, NT, keep using the 2004 NAACP report card as a source. Pure objectivity... (*guess I should expect that from someone who has "The I Hate Republicans Reader: Why the GOP is Totally Wrong About Everything" on his reading list...*)


Ken Mehlman's pan-handling for minority votes doesn't necessarily reflect the true feelings of conservatives nationwide. Find a republican source other than Mr. Mehlman... the reference is a dead horse and awfully lonely to boot!

History tells the true story. Democrats and Republican ranks alike were flush with racist ideologies, and may well be to date. I provided numerous recent links in previous posts to show that the reality is that if there are/were racist notions in Washington, it's not segregated to the GOP side of the aisle.

Ho-hum. The predicitabily of your responses and their repetition is getting tedious aevans176. Why you are trying so hard to defend an indefensible and discredited tactic as the Southern Strategy is beyond me.

Nobody ever said Ken Mehlman spoke for all Repubicans. Apparently, he only speaks for those who understand the bigotry behind the race-baiting Southern Strategy. However, as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, he definitely represents the majority of Republicans far more than you do.

Ah, and here we go again with your usual "I can't stand the NAACP" rhetoric. Just as I never said Mehlman spoke for all Republicans, neither did I suggest the NAACP Report Card was devoid of a political slant. Duh. It's the NAACP! They're supposed to have an agenda. Who the heck said it was unbiased? I would suspect a report card by the NRA, Christian Coalition and the Concerned Women of America would be equally hard on Democrats.

And no...actually I don't wonder why some conservatives don't care about the NAACP. The NAACP understands, as do I, that too often some conservatives have been obstacles to racial progress in America. What I've never figured out is what exactly it is some conservatives are trying to conserve?

Why should I bother finding another reference than Chairman Mehlman for you to heap scorn and ridicule upon? It's not as if you have a open mind on the subject. I knew you would never accept the sources I quoted or examples I provided. But then again, trying to gain your acceptance is something I've never concerned myself with.

Obviously Mehlman is uncomfortable with his party exploiting race to win votes and campaigns. It's equally obvious that in your pathetically transparent effort to excuse Republican racism by saying Democratic racism was and is equally vicious that you are comfortable with the Southern Strategy and a apologist for it.

Oh, and by the way....Black conservatives who draw the bulk of their funding and support from White conservatives are pretty much "puppets." The same thing could be said of Black liberals who draw all of their funding and support from White liberals.

Crazy world, isn't it?

I would venture to state the same for your open-mindedness on any topic that involves skin color or even the mention of partisan politics. Your ho-hum statement screams of the inability to provide true evidence to the points you'd prefer we digest; while surely perpetuating a liberal stigma in the eyes of many conservative readers... lots of bark/very small teeth...

However, your mention that the NAACP is the same as the NRA makes a very valid point in reference to agenda-based partisan politics, and I'd expect that in order to make a point in debate of this caliber that you'd request sources other than those obviously partial. As mentioned previously, if I'd used the National Review as an editorial source (as a "report card is"), it would garner beyond ridicule.

I'm no apologist for the Southern Strategy, as I said that noone ever proved that it was racist. No one has ever proven that the motives of the GOP as a whole are/were racially motivated. We've never even discussed states rights and the idea that many southerners feel as if the country's agenda doesn't often fit the needs of their locale, the idea that State's rights are a defining factor in what makes a republican, etc... however, NT, it's probably hard for you to see past the haze of Why the GOP is Totally Wrong About Everything (of course, unless you're Ken Melhman or speaking at a hostile NAACP rally...).

What I believe I have proven is that other than Ken Melhman, you cannot find a non-liberal source to agree with the idea that the Southern Strategy was based upon some biggoted notion... and furthermore that the GOP ideology on race was any different than the DNC mentality of the time.

For someone that perpetuates himself as a pillar of reasoning, I think that I'd love for you to objectively consider why a southern voter might have switched party lines in the 1960's, and what actually may have caused the shift aside from Race. The world, contrary to the belief of some, doesn't revolve around the amount of pigment a person's skin carries. However, it is important to notet that many Americans believe that what's good for New Hampshire isn't necessarily good for Louisiana...

This thread was centered around a juncture in time that a did carry overwhelming racial connotations. The fact that nearly no congressmen south of the Mason-Dixon voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 speaks volumes in itself. However, something to add to the subject is that he act was signed by LBJ, one of the most prominent southern politicians of that period in history.

Finally, some liberals have been a speed-bump to racial progress in the United States, to include some minority liberals. To paste a party on the dart board while ignoring the ills of Democrats over time (and even recently as I posted)... is just plain near-sighted and counter productive. This is probably why people make statments like "....Black conservatives who draw the bulk of their funding and support from White conservatives are pretty much "puppets." There's no way that they could be intelligent and accomplished parts of American Society??? ... ... Guess everything on the face of the planet has to do with exactly "how brown" ones skin happens to be.... Whatever...

I don't know why I'm bothering to do this. Maybe it's the possibility---however faint---that while I know there's no reaching you on the subject, perhaps someone else reading this thread will realize how the GOP made a deal with the devil when it played the race card back when Kevin Phillips sold Richard Nixon on "the Southern Strategy."

I quote from an article by Lee Hubbard that appeared on Alternet on March 20, 2001:

Arizona senator Barry Goldwater began the Republicans' catering to Southern racism in his 1964 presidential race against Lyndon Johnson. Realizing a large share of the black vote was going to Johnson, who was working on crafting the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, Goldwater came out against it, and went for states' rights instead. This helped him ride the wave of white backlash, and he carried the five Deep South (Dixiecrat) states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. This was unheard of for a Republican at the time.

That same year, Strom Thurmond, the then segregationist Democratic senator from South Carolina, saw the writing on the wall and switched to the Republican Party. "The Democratic Party has forsaken the people," said Thurmond at the time. "It has become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union leaders, political bosses and big businessmen looking for government contracts and favors."

Four years later in 1968, Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" used tactics from the Goldwater and the Dixiecrat playbook of George Wallace to play on white fear and resentment by labeling blacks "welfare cheats" and "laggards." The white backlash to the Civil Rights Movement and to LBJ's Great Society programs (which, paradoxically, gave poor Southern white people unprecedented access to health care, education, and job training) helped elect Nixon, and the party wrote off black voters completely.

"Substantial Negro support is not necessary to national Republican victory," said Kevin Phillips, the mastermind behind the Nixon strategy. "The GOP can build a winning coalition without Negro votes. Indeed, Negro-Democratic mutual identification was a major source of Democratic loss and Republican party profit in many sections of the country."



Wrong. Again.

'I see an America where all our children are taught the basic skills they need to live up to their God-given potential ... where every citizen owns a stake in the future of our country, and where a growing economy creates jobs and opportunity for everyone ... where most troubled neighborhoods become safe places of kinship and community ... where every person of every race has the opportunity to strive for a better future and to take part of the promise of America. And I believe the government has a role to play in helping people gain the tools they need to build lives of dignity and purpose."

Those were George W. Bush's words addressing the 35th anniversary of the Indiana Black Expo recently when he talked about a new relationship between African-Americans and the Republican Party – a 21st-century relationship based upon the historic bond that was ruptured during the '60s with what can only be described as a "Southern Strategy" based on racial division.

On the same day GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman sent a powerful message to all of black America when he addressed the NAACP's annual meeting. He acknowledged how the Republican Party had benefited electorally from racial polarization in the past: "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

This was a message of mea culpa that will resonate with most African-Americans of goodwill across the country. It is a repudiation of the Southern Strategy that began with Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign and led to Barry Goldwater's voting against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, both of which were interpreted as the Republican Party deserting its historical commitment to equal opportunity and civil rights for people of color.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20...lz1e19kemp.html

The author is Congressman Jack Kemp, Bob Dole's vice-presidential running mate and one of the most progressive voices in the GOP on matters of racial progress.

Oh, and he's a Republican. And not a liberal. Kemp is credited as a driving force behind both the conservative group Empower America and enterprise zones for poor neighborhoods to encourage job growth and entrepreneurship.



Follow this link: http://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/votetour10.htm

Then you can check out this discussion following the furor over Senator Trent Lott's remarks in 2002:

I think again, that for the Republican Party, this speaks to perhaps some internal needs. I think many Republicans are embarrassed by the existence within their party, which continues to carry the racist vote, are embarrassed by the Confederate Flag issue, are embarrassed the way questions like reparations and so on resonate within the party. And I think, as was said, that the country is changing as well and there's a large constituency, not simply black, but others, who are -- also don't want to be part of a party which carries the banner of racism, whether it's done through code words or done in a more overt way.

So I think there's something that's happening within the Republican Party that this is speaking to, and I think also there's something that's happening outside of the Republican Party as well. And it's the negotiation of that which seems to be happening at this moment, or I should say, the renegotiation of those changes.

LEE EDWARDS: Well, I think certainly this is the reason why conservatives are the first to criticize Trent Lott. Looking back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Barry Goldwater's vote against it, now that vote, and I wrote a biography of Barry Goldwater and I studied this issue pretty carefully. He voted against that act on constitutional grounds saying that Title VII, equal employment opportunity, would lead to affirmative action. And of course he was right about that.

But in 1964 and 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed, Mississippi was burning, and blacks looked at these two and said these are rights of political passage and if you're not for us, you're against us and therefore you're racist and you're a bigot.

So conservatives and Republicans have been carrying that as an albatross around their neck for some 40 years and that is why they were among the first to come forward and say this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that we're neither one of those things.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/race_relati...race_12-24.html

I'm not trying to convince you aevans176 that the Southern Strategy was based on racially polarizing politics. History has vindicated that position. Nor am I going to waste my time trying to come up with sources or spokesperson you find acceptably "fair and balanced." Accept it or reject it. Makes no difference. I'm still waiting for something---anything---to demonstrate a systematic pattern of similar racism practiced by the Democratic Party equal to that of the Republicans from you. Just saying, "Well, they were just as bad" may be personally satisfying but it's woefully lacking as any quantifiable evidence in a debate.



My, but you seem fascinated with this book. Would you like to borrow my copy?

Aside from being a boogey-man for Leftist race hustlers, yes, white supremacy is a non-starter for all practical purposes. We could go round and round on this, but since your definition of "white racism" has devolved into "if he opposes giving special treatment to persons of color, then he's a racist", i.e opposition to Affirmative Action = racism, there isn't much point to it.

EDITED TO REMOVE PERSONAL ATTACK

It's Friday, and I've tired of this back and forth debaucle... but it's hard to argue the fact that you said...
"....Black conservatives who draw the bulk of their funding and support from White conservatives are pretty much "puppets."

A pillar of objectivity on the Southern Strategy and the GOP I tell ya. Sounds marginally biggoted if you were to ask me. Maybe if you were to make more even-keeled and less biggoted/prejudiced statements, some of us may enjoy the debate and listen to your points (or lack there of).

The bottom line is that you refuse to acknowledge/refute any of the links I've produced on DNC racism and prominent biggots in the party... you openly bash republicans as predominant racists, and the back-bone of your arguments rely on organizations like the NAACP and remarks made in speeches after Trent Lott was caught making "racially-centered" remarks and attempting to save his career, U of Michigan studies that tell us what we already know (about segregation of voting which included democrats), and Jack Kemp (nuff said!). Next thing you know you'll have quotes from Hillary Clinton and Mr. Mfume... ... If the republican party is racist in your eyes, and the Dixiecrats were the beginning of such racism, NT, I cannot change your views. History and GOP legislation hasn't proven to make similar claims... it's just plain fact.

I'm willing to admit that race was an issue during many years in American political history. What you've failed to prove is that this is isolated to the Republicans....