[lowbridge]

The Myth of ‘the Southern Strategy’ "It’s an easy story to believe, but this year two political scientists called it into question. In their book “The End of Southern Exceptionalism,” Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth"

-snip

"To be sure, Shafer says, many whites in the South aggressively opposed liberal Democrats on race issues. “But when folks went to the polling booths,” he says, “they didn’t shoot off their own toes. They voted by their economic preferences, not racial preferences.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10Section2b.t-4.html

The Neocons and Nixon’s Southern Strategy

Between 1969 and 1974, Nixon who believed that blacks had gotten a raw deal in America and wanted to extend a helping hand:

* raised the civil rights enforcement budget 800 percent;

* doubled the budget for black colleges;

* appointed more blacks to federal posts and high positions than any president, including LBJ;

* adopted the Philadelphia Plan mandating quotas for blacks in unions, and for black scholars in colleges and universities;

* invented “Black Capitalism” (the Office of Minority Business Enterprise), raised U.S. purchases from black businesses from $9 million to $153 million, increased small business loans to minorities 1,000 percent, increased U.S. deposits in minority-owned banks 4,000 percent;

* raised the share of Southern schools that were desegregated from 10 percent to 70 percent.

Wrote the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1975, “It has only been since 1968 that substantial reduction of racial segregation has taken place in the South.”

The charge that we built our Republican coalition on race is a lie. Nixon routed the left because it had shown itself incompetent to win or end a war into which it had plunged the United States and too befuddled or cowardly to denounce the rioters burning our cities or the brats rampaging on our campuses.

http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-the-neocons-and-nixons-southern-strategy-512

[RIghtwardHo]

Sometimes the only response is to shake your head.

[Vigilanteman]

Another simple test: Nearly every city or state where Democrats have a monopoly on power is flirting with bankruptcy (or worse), has the worst racial violence in the country and/or is a general hellhole where people who start businesses and hire people are looking to flee, if they haven't done so already. Racial animosity is so bad that special districts have to be drawn to ensure representation of racial minorities. Examples abound: Illinois, Rhode Island, California, San Bernardino, Scranton, PA

The far lesser number of cities and states where Republicans have a monopoly on power are generally fiscally solvent, have crime far below the national average, are magnets for business and even elect minorities to high office from overwhelmingly white majority districts. Examples: Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, South Carolina, Idaho.

Why do you suppose that is?

[Slump Tester]

His biggest crime/stupidity was opening up relations with Red China. Look at us now - no manufacturing left anywhere. He just made it easier for them to sell what they steal from us.

[Iron Munro]

Barack Obama’s criminality and open lawbreaking make Dick Nixon look like a later day Huck Finn caught pocketing a piece of penny candy.

[sportutegrl]

How does Nixon's "Southern Strategy" explain the 1968 Presidential Election?

George Wallace, Third Party, former Democrat, segregationist ran on a promise to end forced busing in the South and he carried all the Deep South states. Yet, Nixon won, anyway. Simple. Wallace split the Democrat vote, not the Republican vote.

If Nixon did have a "Southern Strategy", it sure didn't help him win the South.

[TexasCajun]

Richard Cohen -— What a Dick!

[nathanbedford]

Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of American politics: All politics in America is not local but ultimately racial.

[VeniVidiVici]

Dick Cohen. Another liberal that’s never had to work for a living.

[Will88]

Johnson himself had forecast that Southern whites would desert the Democratic Party.

That's true, and LBJ also said he'd "have those N-words voting Democrat for the next 200 years.

Old LBJ understood vote buying and the Dims of today still understand it. How strange that the writer of the article didn't include that totally relevant forecast.

http://search.foxtab.com/results.php?q=LBJ+will+have+those+voting+democrat+for+the+next+200+years&a=fxmoz&f=2&category=web&start=1

[Fiji Hill]

In his book The Winning Side: The Case for Goldwater Republicanism (New York: Putnam, 1963), Ralph de Toledano noted that white voters across the South were beginning to vote Republican, but that these were not segregationists. The segregationists, he noted remained with the Democratic party.

[Signalman]

LBJ was far worse for blacks than Nixon. His “Great Society” program destroyed the black family structure, replacing the father with the govt., resulting in an illegitamacy rate over 70%.

[PATRIOT1876]

The moron who wrote this ACTUALLY is allowed to write for a newspaper!?!?!?!?!

Did he fall off a Soviet boat in the 60’s when he was working for Pravda?

I bet he has a picture of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Goebbels hanging in his cubicle.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was the guy who handed Khrushchev the shoe at the UN meeting

[moehoward]

So the Dems are in so much trouble now they have to resort to ‘it’s Nixon’s fault’.

[JimRed]

The White House, it seemed, would not do a damned thing for African-Americans.

You mean getting out of the way to let them succeed or fail on their own doesn't count? If Obama would do that today for all of us, the economy would be booming.

[Albion Wilde]

Who pooped this hyperslanted diatribe out of his backside?

[driftless2]

The big loss of the black vote for Republicans occurred during the '64 campaign and not in the seventies. In 1960 Nixon got 32% of the black vote. By opposing civil rights legislation Goldwater only got about 6% of the black vote in '64.

The so-called southern strategy is a myth concocted by liberals. There wasn't one program created by the '64 civil rights bill that Nixon stopped. There were no covert, subliminal appeals to racist southern whites to vote for Republicans. The fact was a very socially liberal Nixon was not as radical as George McGovern.

[Graewoulf]

Nixon’s biggest crime?

Lemme see now, Nixon created the EPA - - - did he do something worse than that?

[lowbridge]

“The Democratic Party showed racists the door.”

Anyone recall the democratic party showing racists the door?

Anyone?

Bueller?
Bueller?
Bueller?

[tanknetter]

Keeper. Bookmarking.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The big lie, once again.