Who are the "racist wing" of the Republican party?
Byrd, the Senator from W.V. is a former KKK.---where is the apology?
No racist Democrat switched parties to the republican party, other than Strom Thurmond.
And you might be surprized to know that the diehard KKK members, and other white supremist groups hate BUSH as much as the Dems!
The history in this letter is completely accurate! Read this website:
http://wayneperryman.com/
The "constituancy" which voted for and fought and died for equal rights, is the same constituancy that still fights this fight: Evangelical Christians. The Democrat/Republican split is quite different than North/South it is really more along the lines of Urban/Rural. Check out the county by county map from the last election:
Did you know that Affirmative Action was signed into law by NIXON?!
Do you realise how many people of color Bush has appointed into real positions of power in his administration? How does his record measure up to clinton's administration?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that he had a dream, which the Republicans try to live out; that a person should be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin.
You make some excellent points. Your graph on the county-by-county voting is instructive. However, there are other factors at play, which I'd like to address.
First, I'd be interested to know whether the margins of Republican victory in white southern counties are greater than in rural northern counties. Given that cities like Atlanta aren't preventing massive Republican victories in Georgia in national elections, whereas Portland can hand Oregon to the Dems (for instance), this is a question worth pursuing.
Second, you ask, what's the racist wing of the Republican Party? It's people who subscribe to the views espoused by groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens: www.cofcc.org. Those folks ain't voting Democrat.
You say no racist Democrat switched parties other than Thurmond. The Dixiecrats were a party, not just one man. And the Dixiecrats were Democrats who had, yes, switched parties. Not necessarily to the Reps, but not Dems.
Plus, it's hard to deny that the South started going Republican as a result of the civil rights movement, which was propelled by northern Dems (and voted for by northern Reps). Remember, non-southern House Dems voted for the CRA 141-4. That's not the only factor, but it certainly matters. The sheer strength of Strom Thurmond's candidacy demonstrates that many southern Democrats were not content with their party and were looking to switch. And do you count people like Jesse Helms? Or Whitten? Albert Watson? Or even Trent Lott, who opposed integration at his college and was affiliated with the Council for Conservative Citizens? Besides, why not consider folks like David Duke, a Republican?
Again, I'm not saying I support the Democrats. I don't. But there IS a racist wing of the Republican Party, and it is significant.