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Bobby Jindal and the 'Southern Strategy'
American Thinker ^ | October 29, 2007 | Andrew Walden

Posted on 10/29/2007 4:03:12 PM PDT by neverdem

A narrative has been constructed by Democrats and their media allies castigating Republicans as purveyors of a racist "Southern strategy" to explain the transition of the South from solidly Democrat to solidly Republican. If a tree can be judged by its fruit, this narrative is backwards.

Bobby Jindal, a second generation Indian-American, is going to be the new Republican Governor of Louisiana.  Although governors who are black have been elected in Virginia and Massachusetts, this election marks the first time the support of white Southern voters has propelled a non-white governor into office.  Jindal's election is evidence that the much-reviled Republican "Southern Strategy" has actually produced one of the greatest advances for civil rights in the history of the United States.

In 1872-73, almost one hundred thirty five years before Bobby Jindal, a black Union Army Captain, P. B. S. Pinchback, served for 35 days as Governor of Louisiana.  He was not elected, rising to the office after his predecessor had been impeached, but Pinchback and his Reconstruction-era Republican colleagues ruled over the South with the support of freed slaves and so-called ‘carpetbaggers'.  By the time Reconstruction was defeated as part of a dirty deal to settle the 1876 Presidential elections, Democrats had organized white Southerners to build what became known as the "Jim Crow" system of segregation. 

Black Republicans were disenfranchised, the carpetbaggers were driven out and Southern whites -- the Democrat Party base -- re-took political power.  The Democrats enforced their Jim Crow system through the Ku Klux Klan.  Segregation was not simply a policy of government, it was a policy carried out personally by millions of Southern whites.  The Republican Party simply did not exist in many Southern counties.  From 1876 until 1964, Republican presidential candidates won only a handful of electoral votes from the South.

During the Presidential election campaigns of 1964, 1968, and 1972 this all changed.  Civil Rights laws were enacted in 1964 and 1965 (albeit with a higher percentage of Republican than Democrat congressional support).  Leftists sealed their takeover at the Democrats' 1968 Chicago convention.  Segregation-minded Southern whites felt abandoned by the national party which had represented them not only through 90 years of Jim Crow, but also through the Democrat founding of the Confederacy and Democrat defense of slavery prior to secession.  Segregationists staged a last-ditch effort to re-take their party with the 1972 George Wallace Presidential campaign, but to no avail.  Their days as part of the Democrat "solid South" were over.

Spotting political opportunity, Richard Nixon's 1968 Presidential campaign made a concerted effort to win over Southern voters.  It paid off.  Goldwater had only scratched the surface in 1964 carrying five southern statesNixon in 1968 carried six with another five going to the segregationist Wallace-Lemay ticket of the American Independent Party.  By 1972, Republicans swept all 15 Southern states.  Excepting Carter's 1976 southern win, the South has been strong GOP Presidential territory ever since.

Liberals have excoriated Republicans for the ‘southern strategy.'  Republican Linwood Holton employed a strategy of winning black votes to win election in 1970 as the first GOP governor of Virginia since Reconstruction.  Holton in 2002 called the southern strategy "not only morally bankrupt but short-sighted."  A Google search for the exact phrase "racist southern strategy" brings up 1,130 links.  By 2005, Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman was apologizing for the southern strategy saying some Republicans were "trying to benefit politically from racial polarization."

In a 1970 New York Times interview, Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips was blunt in describing the strategy he perfected,
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."
Segregation under 90 years of Democrat rule was the ultimate big government exercise -- controlling where individuals ate, slept and even where they used the toilet.  White southerners were expected to enforce Jim Crow.  But forty-three years after Goldwater, southern whites have been transformed into small government, low tax, "leave me alone" voters.  De jure segregation is dead, killed in part by the fact that for the first time in American history, southern whites now follow a political leadership which is not based on physically enforcing the color bar. 

Black representation in Congress has never been larger -- exactly as Phillips said would be necessary to make sure southern white Democrats don't "backslide".  By "trying to benefit politically from racial polarization" Republicans have defeated 200 years of pro-slavery and then pro-segregation Democrat politics.  In order "to benefit politically from racial polarization" Republicans have worked to maximize black congressional representation by creating black-majority congressional districts.  These efforts transform the Democratic Party, keep segregationist Democrat politicians neutered, and drive southern whites away from the Democrat organizations.  The Republicans in 43 years have produced results that are precisely opposite the Democrats' results from their nearly 200 years of "trying to benefit politically from racial polarization."   

Racial hatred does not arise spontaneously.  It is cultivated by political leaders seeking to use it for their own purposes.  The divorce of white Southerners from the political leaders who kept them dependent on Democrats to continue segregation has changed an ugly socio-political dynamic dating back to the foundations of the United States.  This does not mean that racism has been eliminated-far from it.  But Bobby Jindal's election is the latest evidence of the transformation -- in a single generation -- of what had been the voting block of reaction and racism through all preceding American history. The Republican southern strategy has produced one of the greatest victories ever won for the cause of civil rights in America.    



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: bobbyjindal; gop; jindal; southernstrategy; southernvote
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To: Huck
I’m with you. “It’s apples and oranges, unless you see them all as “darkies.” Jindal is Caucasian and in this country that generally is considered “white”. Do people in Louisiana think anyone with a dark complexion is “black” i.e. negro. Did these GOP voters think they were voting for a black man?
21 posted on 10/30/2007 7:14:39 AM PDT by Varda
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To: Huck; neverdem
Bobby Jindal, a second generation Indian-American, is going to be the new Republican Governor of Louisiana. Although governors who are black have been elected in Virginia and Massachusetts, this election marks the first time the support of white Southern voters has propelled a non-white governor into office.

I have to go with Huck on this one. While the author makes this single distinction between Jindal and blacks the entire rest of the article focuses on blacks.

It's poorly written at best or the author does not know that Indians are Caucasians. Or, he's simply assuming that all white Southern voters are too stupid to know this.

22 posted on 10/30/2007 7:35:19 AM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote.)
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To: neverdem

Thanks for the ping!


23 posted on 10/30/2007 9:22:26 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: neverdem; AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; ...
Thanks neverdem.
A narrative has been constructed by Democrats and their media allies castigating Republicans as purveyors of a racist "Southern strategy" to explain the transition of the South from solidly Democrat to solidly Republican. If a tree can be judged by its fruit, this narrative is backwards.
When the 1994 "Contract with America" approach bore fruit, Pubbies made gains in the South, including some party switchers. Before the new congress was sworn in, the Dhimmicrats began their broad attack on tobacco -- amazing that tobacco had no ill health effects for the previous 58 years, during the rickety FDR coalition.
24 posted on 10/30/2007 10:08:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Monday, October 22, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: ReleaseTheHounds

Yes, I am excited about this man.


25 posted on 10/30/2007 11:11:22 AM PDT by ncpatriot
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To: padre35; sinanju; neverdem; Huck
I don’t know what to make of the article neverdem, are they saying that Jindal’s victory is a repudiation of the “Southern Strategy” or that the Republican Party has abandoned that strategy or what?
I think this is the money quote:
In order "to benefit politically from racial polarization" Republicans have worked to maximize black congressional representation by creating black-majority congressional districts. These efforts transform the Democratic Party, keep segregationist Democrat politicians neutered, and drive southern whites away from the Democrat organizations. The Republicans in 43 years have produced results that are precisely opposite the Democrats' results from their nearly 200 years of "trying to benefit politically from racial polarization."
That is, racial polarization was a fact of Southern life for 200 years, and the Democratic Party was very successful in benefiting from it over the party's entire history up until 1968. Republicans didn't invent racial polarization, and it didn't invent profiting politically by it - but, starting in 1968, it has actually turned racial polarization to its own advantage.

But the crucial point, the point of the quote, is the effect of Republican efforts to "benefit from racial polarization." What it has done is to neuter white Democrat segregationists by empowering, in a limited way, black Democrat segregationists. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to gerrymandering blacks into a few preponderantly black districts, minimizing black influence in the rest of the districts. The irony of the act was that although it was an LBJ initiative it was (as the article notes) enacted with majority Republican votes and a minority of Democratic votes - and the day that he signed it, LBJ foresaw that it would give the Republican Party control of the South.

So in a very real sense the Republican solid South was consciously constructed by LBJ. And although the Republican Solid South includes old white segregationists (witness Strom Thurmond), the Republican Party did not become segregationist in order to attract them. Rather, the white South could never move past segregationism without a political upheaval, and that upheaval was the move of the white South to the Republican Party.

Has the white South transcended its racist past? I would hesitate to go that far, but I would only note that according to Thomas Sowell he has seen the time when was as much as his life was worth to be seen as a negro man with a white woman in the South - and yet in recent years he has been in restaurants in Atlanta with white women and felt perfectly comfortable. As recently as 1960, I myself publicly danced with a negro woman and felt like every eye in the room was on me - even in the North.

I question whether that has entirely dissipated. But that is hardly the same as saying that there has been no change at all - and that is in fact the position of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is in fact not "progressive" but reactionary.


26 posted on 11/01/2007 6:30:35 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: neverdem

The blue and red colors on a Presidential election map have been traditional until 2004. The party holding the Whitehouse has been traditionally colored blue, while the party not controlling the Whitehouse has traditionally colored red.

That means in 1976, when Carter won Georgia, Georgia was a “red state”, because the Republicans controlled the Whitehouse and Carter was a Democrat. In 1980 when Carter again won Georgia, Georgia was a “blue state” because he (and therefore the Democrats) held the Whitehouse.

In 1984, Brinkley famously referred to Reagan’s landslide as a “Sea of Blue”. Since the Republican’s held the Whitehouse, they were “blue”.

In 2000, there came the phrases “red state” and “blue state”. The MSM took up those nicknames and changed tradition in the 2004 election making Bush’s States Red and Kerry’s States Blue, breaking the general tradition that went back to 1968 (first color television coverage of an election).


27 posted on 11/01/2007 6:48:43 AM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: neverdem
Like I said earlier on the thread, don't trust Wikipedia for political references.

Reference 3. ^ Boyd, James (May 17, 1970) "Nixon's Southern strategy: 'It's All in the Charts'". New York Times. p. 215.

Page 215 of the NY Times makes no sense to me.

You can find that article as a PDF here: www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf. The Times listed page 25 as page 215 when they put it online. They also didn't say it was from the New York Times Magazine, not the regular newspaper.

It's not really a study of "the Southern strategy." It's a portrait/trashing of Kevin Phillips. As such, it has more to do with Northern Irish and Italians than Southern Whites.

In 1970 the Times Magazine set felt more comfortable with the New Left than with conservative Republicans. Still, Phillips did rub a lot of people the wrong way, reducing politics to ethnic antagonisms.

Looking back three decades, though, Phillips doesn't have to be ashamed of the substance of his ideas, though he wasn't the best spokesman for the political strategies he supported.

Notice though, that the Wikipedia entry cites another Times article that contradicts the standard liberal assumptions about the "Southern strategy": "Risen, Clay (December 10, 2006) "Myth of the Southern Strategy." New York Times. p. 10-2b (also apparently from the Magazine.

I'd agree with you about not trusting Wikipedia where political opinions are concerned. Maybe not even for facts. But someone says something about elections 150 years ago -- as in the Medved article -- that doesn't jibe with common on-line reference works it's a sign that they may not be right. We'd have to do more research, though, before we can come to any real conclusions about this "Opposition" or "Opposition Party" of 1854.

28 posted on 11/01/2007 2:39:56 PM PDT by x
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To: x
You can find that article as a PDF here: www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf. The Times listed page 25 as page 215 when they put it online. They also didn't say it was from the New York Times Magazine, not the regular newspaper.

Thanks for the links, but you do see my point. Page 215 doesn't even make sense for the Sunday Magazine. Unless someone is thoroughly familiar with the material, how do you make sense out a typo like that?

29 posted on 11/01/2007 3:06:28 PM PDT by neverdem (Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius
The blue and red colors on a Presidential election map have been traditional until 2004. The party holding the Whitehouse has been traditionally colored blue, while the party not controlling the Whitehouse has traditionally colored red.

Do you have a source for that?

30 posted on 11/01/2007 3:09:29 PM PDT by neverdem (Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
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To: neverdem
Our Flag is Red, White and Blue...

Red=Blood of Christ
White=Purity of Christ
Blue=Law of God

The Rodent Commie Party can change us from Blue to Red however jokes on them...RED...BLOOD OF CHRIST...

31 posted on 11/01/2007 3:16:54 PM PDT by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand;but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius

http://www.presidentelect.org/index.html

It’s unofficial but the color scheme is what I remember since I started paying attention to politics.


32 posted on 11/01/2007 3:18:23 PM PDT by neverdem (Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/

There’s another.


33 posted on 11/01/2007 3:22:49 PM PDT by neverdem (Call talk radio. We need a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional term limits. Let's Roll!)
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To: neverdem

I’ll look for the source. I was a Poli Sci major in undergrad (88 to 92) and that was what we learned. NBC and CBS held to that tradition until 2004, I know that (ABC was always a bit odd).


34 posted on 11/01/2007 4:27:18 PM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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