Difference between revisions of "Southern strategy"
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[[Image:1968 PresidentialElection.jpg|right|thumb|400px|1968 electoral map. [[The South]] was carried by Democrat Gov. Geo. Wallace of Alabama who ran on a 3rd party ticket. In 1972 Nixon carried every state in the Union except [[Massachusetts]] against a radical extreme socialist. Massachusetts was the home state of Nixon's 1960 presidential rival, [[John Kennedy]].]] | [[Image:1968 PresidentialElection.jpg|right|thumb|400px|1968 electoral map. [[The South]] was carried by Democrat Gov. Geo. Wallace of Alabama who ran on a 3rd party ticket. In 1972 Nixon carried every state in the Union except [[Massachusetts]] against a radical extreme socialist. Massachusetts was the home state of Nixon's 1960 presidential rival, [[John Kennedy]].]] | ||
| − | The '''Southern strategy''' is | + | The '''Southern strategy''' is an academic theory that posits that Republican candidates used racist appeals to gain electoral support in the South beginning in the late 1960s. Republicans today regularly deny this, and for some reason ignore Republicans in the past who have agreed that a white racist backlash benefitted their party. |
| − | + | When asked why he thought the Republican Party was growing in the South, Frank Rouse, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party in the early 1970s, said, "You don't want to hear this. It's race in North Carolina. That is not supposition."<ref>Christensen, Rob. "The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics." 2009. p. 58</ref> When North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Gavin expressed dismay as to why he was not gaining more traction with black voters despite his efforts, future Republican U.S. Senator Jesse Helms said, "He seems to us to be missing the point if he implies his party ought to undertake to appeal to minority bloc votes. Such a course, we would warn, would surely disrupt the modern growth experienced by Mr. Gavin's party in the state during the past several years."<ref>Christensen, Rob. "The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics." 2009. p. 59</ref> | |
| − | + | Beginning in the 1960s, the Mississippi Democratic Party was split into two factions, the more conservative "Regulars" and the black-dominated, pro-civil rights "Loyalists". In 1976 the Regulars and the Loyalists reached a compromise and agreed to jointly-select their next national delegation. In response, former Regular leader Leon Bramlett joined the Republican Party, saying, "The Democratic Party which I knew and worked for no longer exists. There is no room in the new united party for people like me, for we are not willing to embrace the philosophy of the national Democratic Party and abandon the principles that made this country great."<ref>{{cite news| title = Ex-Dem leader switches parties| work = The Delta Democrat-Times| page = 7| date = March 19, 1976| url = }}</ref> | |
| − | + | The RNC chairman apologized in 2005 on behalf of his party for Republicans historically ignoring the black vote and appealing to white racist sentiment.<ref name="Mehlman">{{cite news|last=Rondy|first=John|title=GOP ignored black vote, chairman says: RNC head apologizes at NAACP meeting|url=https://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/07/15/gop_ignored_black_vote_chairman_says/|newspaper=The Boston Globe|date=July 15, 2005|agency=Reuters|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112220033/http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/07/15/gop_ignored_black_vote_chairman_says/|archivedate=January 12, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="wapo-apology">{{cite news|work=[[The Washington Post]]|title=RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071302342.html|first=Mike|last=Allen|authorlink=Michael Allen (journalist)|date=July 14, 2005|accessdate=October 14, 2013}}</ref> | |
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|2020||[[Joe Biden]] ('''South''')<ref>https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/joe-biden-delaware-civil-war-860886/</ref>||[[Kamala Harris]] (West) | |2020||[[Joe Biden]] ('''South''')<ref>https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/joe-biden-delaware-civil-war-860886/</ref>||[[Kamala Harris]] (West) | ||
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==Lee Atwater== | ==Lee Atwater== | ||
Revision as of 05:12, August 31, 2022
The Southern strategy is an academic theory that posits that Republican candidates used racist appeals to gain electoral support in the South beginning in the late 1960s. Republicans today regularly deny this, and for some reason ignore Republicans in the past who have agreed that a white racist backlash benefitted their party.
When asked why he thought the Republican Party was growing in the South, Frank Rouse, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party in the early 1970s, said, "You don't want to hear this. It's race in North Carolina. That is not supposition."[1] When North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Gavin expressed dismay as to why he was not gaining more traction with black voters despite his efforts, future Republican U.S. Senator Jesse Helms said, "He seems to us to be missing the point if he implies his party ought to undertake to appeal to minority bloc votes. Such a course, we would warn, would surely disrupt the modern growth experienced by Mr. Gavin's party in the state during the past several years."[2]
Beginning in the 1960s, the Mississippi Democratic Party was split into two factions, the more conservative "Regulars" and the black-dominated, pro-civil rights "Loyalists". In 1976 the Regulars and the Loyalists reached a compromise and agreed to jointly-select their next national delegation. In response, former Regular leader Leon Bramlett joined the Republican Party, saying, "The Democratic Party which I knew and worked for no longer exists. There is no room in the new united party for people like me, for we are not willing to embrace the philosophy of the national Democratic Party and abandon the principles that made this country great."[3]
The RNC chairman apologized in 2005 on behalf of his party for Republicans historically ignoring the black vote and appealing to white racist sentiment.[4][5]
| Year | Candidate | VP candidate |
|---|---|---|
| 1932 | Franklin Roosevelt (North) | John Nance Garner (South) |
| 1936 | Franklin Roosevelt (North) | John Nance Garner (South) |
| 1944 | Franklin Roosevelt (North) | Harry Truman (South)[6] |
| 1948 | Harry Truman (South) | Alben Barkley (South) |
| 1952 | Adlai Stevenson (Midwest) | John Sparkman (South) |
| 1956 | Adlai Stevenson (Midwest) | Estes Kefauver (South) |
| 1960 | John Kennedy (North) | Lyndon Johnson (South) |
| 1964 | Lyndon Johnson (South) | Hubert Humphrey (Midwest) |
| 1976 | Jimmy Carter (South) | Walter Mondale (Midwest) |
| 1980 | Jimmy Carter (South) | Walter Mondale (Midwest) |
| 1988 | Michael Dukakis (North) | Lloyd Bentsen (South) |
| 1992 | Bill Clinton (South) | Al Gore (South) |
| 1996 | Bill Clinton (South) | Al Gore (South) |
| 2000 | Al Gore (South) | Joe Lieberman (North) |
| 2004 | John Kerry (North) | John Edwards (South) |
| 2008 | Barack Obama (Midwest) | Joe Biden (South)[7] |
| 2012 | Barack Obama (Midwest) | Joe Biden (South)[8] |
| 2016 | Hillary Clinton (North) | Tim Kaine (South) |
| 2020 | Joe Biden (South)[9] | Kamala Harris (West) |
Lee Atwater
For a more detailed treatment, see Lee Atwater.
A large portion of the Southern Strategy Conspiracy Theory rests on an out-of-context quote lifted from a 42-minute taped recording between Atwater and Alexander P. Lamis. In the interview, Atwater is quoted as follows:[10]
As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now you don't have to do that. All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
He continued:
You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N*****, n*****, n*****.’ By 1968, you can’t say ‘n*****’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a h*** of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.[11][12][13]
Also in the interview, Atwater said:
But Reagan did not have to do a southern strategy for two reasons. Number one, race was not a dominant issue. And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign had been, quote, southern issues since way back in the sixties. So Reagan goes out and campaigns on the issues of economics and of national defense. The whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference. And I’ll tell you another thing you all need to think about, that even surprised me, is the lack of interest, really, the lack of knowledge right now in the South among white voters about the Voting Rights Act.[14]
The bolded items above are omitted from Wikipedia's entry for the "Southern Strategy".[15] In the interview Atwater makes the point that from 1954 to 1966, race is THE dominant issue and that the only way to win on the issue of race was to be registered as a Democrat. But by the 1980's, the issue of race is resolved and what most Southerners came to care about is national defense and the economy.
See also
- Liberals and racism: the historical racist support of the Democrat Party.
- Slave power
- Party switch myth
References
- ↑ Christensen, Rob. "The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics." 2009. p. 58
- ↑ Christensen, Rob. "The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics." 2009. p. 59
- ↑ "Ex-Dem leader switches parties", The Delta Democrat-Times, March 19, 1976, p. 7.
- ↑ Rondy, John. "GOP ignored black vote, chairman says: RNC head apologizes at NAACP meeting", July 15, 2005. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012.
- ↑ Allen, Mike. "RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes", The Washington Post, July 14, 2005. Retrieved on October 14, 2013.
- ↑ Missouri became a slave state as a result of the Dred Scott decision.
- ↑ According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Delaware is a Southern state. Delaware lies south of the historic Mason-Dixon line.
- ↑ During his 1988 presidential campaign Biden himself said Delaware, "was a "slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way;" [1] and " “we (Delawareans) were on the South’s side in the Civil War.” [2]
- ↑ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/joe-biden-delaware-civil-war-860886/
- ↑ Between Race and Reason - Violence, Intellectual Responsibility, and the University to Come
- ↑ Atwater's Strategy
- ↑ The Ultimate Fighter: Before Rove, Before Palin, There Was Lee Atwater
- ↑ Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy
- ↑ What Did Lee Atwater Really Say?
- ↑ Southern strategy