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Posted on 02/02/2004 4:33:23 PM PST by FlyLow
PBS’s Now on with Bill Moyers on Friday night delivered the usual liberal media perspective on Southern politics and the history of the two political parties. Setting up a series of segments with liberal guests complaining about appeals by conservatives and Republicans to racist sentiments held by whites, co-host David Brancaccio recalled how “when the Democratic Party embraced civil rights, the old political order began to fall apart -- 1964 was the watershed moment when legendary South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond turned Republican.”
In fact, Democrats, such as House Speakers Tip O’Neill and Jim Wright, held power for another 25 years on the backs of Southern blacks since it was segregation-supporting, Southern white Democratic Congressmen who gave Democrats their House and Senate majorities. But instead of noting that, Brancaccio tried to discredit the other party: “Republicans came to dominate Southern politics. Their core message changed from overt racism to family values and law and order.”
Online, Now’s Web page named names: “Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have built on the legacy of resentment tapped into by Wallace and Thurmond. Social issues figured prominently in southern races and white evangelical Christians proved a powerful voter base for the Republican Party.”
Left unsaid, naturally, how when Newt Gingrich won election to the House in 1978, 14 years after Thurmond’s party switch, he replaced a segregationist Democrat.
Brancaccio introduced the preview of Tuesday’s South Carolina primary, as transcribed by the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth: “Money and power on display as Democrats barnstorm through the South this week. But a battle is raging in the party about how to win hearts and minds in the changing landscape of the new South. Al Gore failed to carry a single Southern state, not even his home state of Tennessee. The primary in South Carolina on Tuesday will be the first real test of which candidates can connect with the Southern electorate. History is against these Democrats. Only one Democratic presidential candidate in the last generation has managed to crack South Carolina’s political code. A gentleman from the next state down did it in 1976. But since Jimmy Carter, it’s been a long dry spell for the Democrats, the party that used to reign supreme in these parts. Remember for the first hundred years after the Civil War, Democrats here and across the South were the party of segregation, dedicated to preserving the racial status quo. But when the Democratic Party embraced civil rights, the old political order began to fall apart -- 1964 was the watershed moment when legendary South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond turned Republican.” Former Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), in 1964: “The Democratic Party has forsaken the people to become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union leaders, political bosses, and big businessmen looking for government contracts and favors.” Brancaccio: “Race was still the number one issue, but Thurmond and others often transmitted in code. 'States Rights,’ was the phrase, meaning the rights of white Southerners to oppose the federal push for integration. Republicans came to dominate Southern politics. Their core message changed from overt racism to family values and law and order. Behind it was anger at big government and faceless, meddling Washington bureaucrats. A potent political message, says David Beasley. In 1991, Beasley, a fifth generation Democrat and South Carolina state representative, changed his party and ran for governor as a Republican. He won.” David Beasley, former South Carolina Governor: “Democrats became perceived as the party of big government, central government, more taxes, more regulations, Washington knows all, opposed to states rights, these type of issues, and opposed to pro-family and Southern traditional family values-type issues. And those issues culminated into what began the slow march away from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party over time.” Brancaccio: “Now both Republicans and Democrats are faced with a South that’s in rapid transition. Industry and technology are now driving the region’s economy, no longer agriculture. Republicans have responded to a world driven by freer trade by offering tax breaks to companies to move in, attracting investment from foreign countries such as Michelin, BMW, and Hitachi. There are losers in this new economic equation. New jobs created in South Carolina don’t necessarily go to workers displaced in old line industries. In the past three years, 70,000 jobs have disappeared in South Carolina, the worst stretch for jobs since the Great Depression. Many of those jobs came from the state’s once-booming textile industry. Those jobs and many others have shifted overseas.”
Online, Now’s Web site featured this item: “The Solid South? “In the aftermath of the American Civil War the former Confederate states maintained a cohesive voting pattern nearly a century. It became known as 'The Solid South’ and was counted in the Democratic column for years. But as times, and party platforms, changed southern politics did too. Now for several decades the South has been solidly in the Republican camp. Find out more about the history, and possible future, of the southern vote below....
“THE REAGAN REVOLUTION AND BEYOND “Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have built on the legacy of resentment tapped into by Wallace and Thurmond. Social issues figured prominently in southern races and white evangelical Christians proved a powerful voter base for the Republican Party. Consider these trends from historian Richard K. Scher: “-- Beginning in 1980 the Republican presidential nominee has won about 54% of the popular vote in the South, virtually landslide proportions; the Democratic nominee averaged only 42%. “-- Since 1984, the South has supported the Republican presidential nominee at a higher percentage than the country as a whole. At the presidential level, the South is now the most Republican region of the country. “During the 2004 campaign southern states like South Carolina are seen as crucial in both the primary and national elections. Democratic candidates will likely emphasize the South's ongoing troubles. Key industries like textiles have been moving operations overseas -- South Carolina's textile industry shrunk by 7 percent in 2003. And, southern states consistently rank near the bottom in national education and poverty statistics.”
That’s online at: www.pbs.org
But a gunman's bullet ended that in Maryland at that shopping center in May 1972...on the very day Wallace took, unprecedented, the MICHICAN and MARYLAND Democratic primaries. And he was leading in the total Democratic delegate count by that day. He was a POWERFUL steamroller that only bullets could stop. I am convinced he could have turned things upside down and actually won in 1972. We would have seen an interesting outcome in Vietnam, and further, we would have had no Watergate, nor resignation, nor President Carter.
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I happened to catch a few minutes of this program even though I never watch such shows. The had some older Southern liberal on who said the Democrats are making a mistake talking about foreign policy and economics because it allows Republicans to "take the high road" whereas if they talked about social issues it would, in essence, force the Republicans to expose themselves and openly appeal to their racist, misogynistic, homophobic, troglodyte base constituency thereby frightening the middle-of-the-road swing voters.
Has Bill Moyers had an original thought since 1965?
Your memory is too good. Most folks forget just how well Governor Wallace was doing in 1972. Likewise, they forget that the only reason then-Governor Reagan was able to rally against Ford was that the Southern Primaries allowed cross over Wallace voters to sweep Reagan into victories across the South.
I also recall the Carter Conspiracy...a bunch of lib Democrats stayed out of Florida in 1976 in order to knock out Wallace early on in the race. You are right about the cross over voting, too.
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