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| {{for|the British strategy in the American Revolutionary War|Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War}} | |||
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| In ], the '''Southern strategy''' refers to a ] strategy in the late 20th century of gaining political support for presidential candidates in the ] by appealing to regional racial tensions and history of ].<ref name="Boyd">{{cite news|title=Nixon's Southern strategy: 'It's All in the Charts'|last=Boyd|first=James |date=May 17, 1970|publisher=The New York Times|url=http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf|format=PDF|accessdate=2008-08-02}}</ref><ref name="Counter">Carter, Dan T. ''From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994.'' pages 27-29</ref> | |||
| The ] in the South defended slavery before the ]. After regaining power in state governments in the 1870s, Democrats imposed white supremacy. At the end of the century, southern states passed new constitutions and laws making voter registration and voting more difficult, resulting in ] most blacks and many poor whites. The South became a one-party region, maintaining political exclusion of minorities well into the 1960s. The ] and its political power in Congress was achieved at the expense of African Americans. In the years after World War II, African Americans pressed for civil rights. White Southern Democrats gradually stopped supporting the national party following its adoption of the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in ] (against which the ]s formed), support for the ], passage of the ] and ], and push for ]. | |||
| In the mid 1960s, a period of social turmoil, Republican Presidential candidates Senator ]<ref>{{cite book|last=Black & Black|first=Earl & Merle|title=Rise of the Southern Republicans|year=2003|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=442}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Kalk|first=Bruce H.|title=The Origin of the Southern Strategy|year=2001|publisher=Lexington Books|location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=978-0-7391-0242-8|page=55|chapter=The Goldwater Effect, 1962-1966}}</ref> and ] worked to attract southern white conservative voters to their candidacies and the Republican Party.<ref name="NY Times 1996">{{cite news|title=G.O.P. Tries Hard to Win Black Votes, but Recent History Works Against It|last=Apple|first=R.W. Jr. |date=September 19, 1996|publisher=The New York Times|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E2DA1F3AF93AA2575AC0A960958260|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64t5A14Sz|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref> Barry Goldwater won the five formerly Confederate states of the ] (], ], ], ], and ]<ref name="freedict">{{cite web|title=Deep South|work=The Free Dictionary|url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Deep+South|accessdate=2007-01-18}}</ref><ref name="synon">{{cite web|title=Deep South|work=Synonym.com|url=http://www.synonym.com/definition/deep%20south/|accessdate=2007-01-18}}</ref>) in the 1964 presidential election, but he otherwise won only in his home state of Arizona. In the ], Nixon won Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, all former Confederate states, contributing to the ] of white voters in some Southern states to the Republican Party. After federal civil rights legislation was gained via ] votes, including the ], more than 90 percent of black voters registered with the Democratic Party. The VRA provided tools to end their decades-long ] by southern states. Hundreds of cases have been litigated to change election systems, such as ] voting, that have prevented even significant minorities from electing candidates of their choice for city and county positions. | |||
| As the twentieth century came to a close, most white voters in the South had shifted to the Republican Party. It began to try to appeal again to black voters and rebuild the political relationship that had lasted through the 1920s, though with little success.<ref name="NY Times 1996" /> In 2005, ] chairman ] formally apologized to the ] (NAACP), a national civil rights organization, for exploiting racial polarization to win elections and ignoring the black vote.<ref name="Mehlman"/><ref name="wapo-apology">{{cite news | work = ] | title = RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes | url = http://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> | |||
| ==Introduction== | |||
| ] | |||
| Although the phrase "Southern strategy" is often attributed to Nixon's political strategist ], he did not originate it<ref name="Javits">{{cite news|title=To Preserve the Two-Party System|last=Javits|first=Jacob K.|date=October 27, 1963|publisher=The New York Times|accessdate=2008-08-02}}</ref> but popularized it.<ref name="Phillips">{{cite book|last=Phillips|first=Kevin|title=The Emerging Republican Majority|publisher=Arlington House|location=New York|year=1969|accessdate=2008-08-02|isbn=0-87000-058-6 |oclc=18063}}</ref> In an interview included in a 1970 '']'' article, Phillips stated his analysis based on studies of ethnic voting: | |||
| :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 ]. 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.<ref name="Boyd" /> | |||
| While Phillips sought to increase Republican power by polarizing ethnic voting in general, and not just to win the white South, the South was by far the biggest prize yielded by his approach. Its success began at the presidential level. Gradually southern voters began to elect Republicans to Congress, and finally to statewide and local offices, particularly as some legacy segregationist Democrats retired or switched to the GOP. In addition, the Republican Party worked for years to develop ] political organizations across the South, supporting candidates for local school boards and city and county offices, as examples. But, following the ], in the ], southern voters came out in support for the "favorite son" candidate, Southern Democrat ]. | |||
| From 1948 to 1984 the Southern states, for decades a stronghold for the ] after disenfranchising most blacks, became key ]s, providing the popular vote margins in the ], ] and 1976 elections. During this era, several Republican candidates expressed support for ], an issue over which southern states had argued against the federal government prior to the Civil War. Some political analysts said this term was used in the 20th century as a "codeword" to represent opposition to federal enforcement of civil rights for blacks and to federal intervention on their behalf; many individual southerners had opposed passage of the Voting Rights Act.<ref name="Branch">{{cite book|last=Branch|first=Taylor|title=Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=1999|page=242|accessdate=2008-08-02|isbn=0-684-80819-6 |oclc=37909869}}</ref> | |||
| ==19th century disfranchisement and rise of the Solid South== | |||
| {{Main|Solid South}} | |||
| After the ], ] gained additional seats in the ] and representation in the ] because the millions of freed slaves were granted full citizenship and ]. Southern white resentment stemming from the Civil War and the Republican Party’s policy of ] kept most southern whites in the Democratic Party, but the Republicans competed in the South with a biracial coalition of freedmen, Unionists, and highland whites. | |||
| Rising intimidation, election fraud, and violence by white ], such as the ] and ], who supported the Democratic Party during the mid to late-1870s, contributed to the turning out Republican officeholders and suppression of the black vote.<ref>George C. Rable, ''But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction'', Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984, p. 132</ref> After the North agreed to withdraw federal troops under the ], white Democrats used a variety of tactics in each election cycle to reduce voting by African Americans and poor whites.<ref>], ''Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War'', New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, Paperback, 2007, pp.74-80</ref> In the 1880s they began to pass legislation making election processes more complicated and in some cases requiring payment of poll taxes, which created a barrier for poor people of both races. | |||
| ]'' criticizing the use of literacy tests. It shows "Mr. ]" writing on the wall, "Eddikashun qualifukashun. The Blak man orter be eddikated afore he kin vote with us Wites."]] | |||
| From 1890 to 1908, the white Democratic legislatures in every Southern state enacted new constitutions or amendments with provisions to disenfranchise most blacks<ref>{{cite book|last=Zinn|first=Howard|title=]|year=1999|publisher=HarperCollins|location=New York|isbn=0-06-052842-7|pages=205–210, 449}}</ref> and tens of thousands of poor whites. Provisions required payment of ], and complicated residency, ], and other requirements, which were subjectively applied against blacks. As blacks lost their vote, the Republican Party lost its ability to effectively compete in the South.<ref name="Perman">{{cite book|last=Perman|first=Michael|title=Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888-1908|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=Chapel Hill, NC|year=2001|chapter=Introduction|accessdate=2008-08-02|isbn=0-8078-2593-X |oclc=44131788}}</ref> There was a dramatic drop in voter turnout as these measures took effect, a decline in African-American participation that was enforced for decades in all southern states.<ref name="University of Texas">{{cite web|url=http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/vce/0503.html|title=Turnout for Presidential and Midterm Elections|work=Politics: Historical Barriers to Voting|publisher=University of Texas|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080801225046/http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/vce/0503.html |archivedate=August 1, 2008}}</ref> | |||
| Because blacks were closed out of the political process, the South's congressional delegations and state governments were dominated by white Democrats until past the middle of the 20th century. Effectively, Southern white Democrats controlled all the votes of the expanded population by which Congressional apportionment was figured. Many of their representatives achieved powerful positions of seniority in Congress, giving them control of chairmanships of significant Congressional committees. Although the ] has a provision to reduce the Congressional representation of states that denied votes to their adult male citizens, this provision was never enforced. Because African Americans could not be voters, they were also prevented from being jurors and serving in local offices. Services and institutions for them in the segregated South were chronically underfunded by state and local governments, from which they were excluded.<ref name="Beginnings of black education">, ''The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia.'' Virginia Historical Society. Retrieved April 12, 2009.</ref> | |||
| During this period, Republicans held only a few House seats from the South. Between 1880 and 1904, Republican presidential candidates in the South received between 35 and 40 percent of that section's vote (except in 1892, when the 16 percent for the Populists knocked Republicans down to 25 percent). From 1904 to 1948, after disenfranchisement, Republicans received more than 30 percent of the section's votes only in the ] (35.2 percent, carrying Tennessee) and ] (47.7 percent, carrying five states). The only important political role of the South in presidential elections came in the ], when it provided the delegates to select Taft over Theodore Roosevelt in that year's Republican convention. In this period, more than 1.5 million African Americans left the South in the ], changing demographics in both the South and the North and becoming urbanized. | |||
| Scholar Richard Valelly credits ]'s election to the disfranchisement of blacks in the South, as it resulted in a substantial loss of votes by Republicans. He also documents far-reaching effects in Congress, where the Democratic South gained "about 25 extra seats in Congress for each decade between 1903 and 1953."<ref name="valelly146-147"></ref> | |||
| During this period, Republican administrations appointed blacks to political positions. Republicans regularly supported anti-] bills, but these were filibustered by Southern Democrats in the ]. In the 1928 election, the Republican candidate ] rode the issues of ] and ]<ref>{{cite news|last=Dobbs|first=Ricky Floyd|title=Continuities in American anti-Catholicism: the Texas Baptist Standard and the coming of the 1960 election.|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Continuities+in+American+anti-Catholicism:+the+Texas+Baptist+Standard...-a0162618834 |newspaper=Baptist History and Heritage|date=January 1, 2007|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64t913Kud|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref> to carry five former Confederate states, with 62 of the 126 electoral votes of the section. After his victory, Hoover attempted to build up the Republican Party of the South, transferring his limited patronage away from blacks and toward the same kind of white Protestant businessmen who made up the core of the Northern Republican Party. With the onset of the ], which severely affected the South, Hoover soon became extremely unpopular. The gains of the Republican Party in the South were lost. In the ], Hoover received only 18.1 percent of the Southern vote for re-election. | |||
| ==World War II and population changes== | |||
| In the ], after ] signed an Executive Order to desegregate the Army, a group of Southern Democrats known as ] split from the Democratic Party in reaction to the inclusion of a civil rights plank in the party's platform. This followed a floor fight led by ] mayor and (soon-to-be ]) ]. The disaffected Democrats formed the States' Rights Democratic, or ] Party, and nominated Governor ] of ] for president. Thurmond carried four Deep South states in the general election: ], ], ], and ]. The main plank of the States' Rights Democratic Party was maintaining ] and ] in the South. The Dixiecrats, failing to deny the Democrats the presidency in 1948, soon dissolved, but the split lingered. In 1964, Thurmond was one of the first conservative southern Democrats to switch to the Republican Party.<ref name="Goldwater">{{cite news|title=Thurmond to Bolt Democrats Today; South Carolinian Will Join G.O.P. and Aid Goldwater| newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 16, 1964 |page=12 |url=http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70711F939591B7A93C4A81782D85F408685F9 |quote=Both senators have opposed the Administration on such matters as civil rights...|accessdate=December 27, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Party of Civil Rights|url=http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023915.php|date=May 21, 2010|first=Steve|last=Benen|work=]|accessdate=June 18, 2012}}</ref> | |||
| In addition to the splits in the Democratic Party, the population movements associated with ] had a significant effect in changing the demographics of the South. More than 5 million African Americans migrated from the South to the North and West in the ], lasting from 1940-1970. Starting before WWII, many had moved to ] for jobs in the defense industry, as well as to major industrial cities of the ].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gregg|first1=Khyree|title=The Second Great Migration|url=http://www.inmotionaame.org/print.cfm;jsessionid=f830127271430904287014?migration=9&bhcp=1|website=inmotionaame|publisher=inmotionaame|accessdate=6 May 2015}}</ref> | |||
| With control of powerful committees, during and after the war, Southern Democrats gained new federal military installations in the South and other federal investments. Changes in industry, and growth in universities and the military establishment in turn attracted Northern transplants to the South, and bolstered the base of the Republican Party. In the post-war Presidential campaigns, Republicans did best in those fastest-growing states of the South that had the most Northern transplants. In the ], ] and ], ], ] and ] went Republican, while Louisiana went Republican in 1956, and ] twice voted for ] and once for ]. In 1956, Eisenhower received 48.9 percent of the Southern vote, becoming only the second Republican in history (after ]) to get a plurality of Southern votes.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} | |||
| The white conservative voters of the states of the Deep South remained loyal to the Democratic Party, which had not officially repudiated segregation. Because of declines in population or smaller rates of growth compared to other states, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and North Carolina lost congressional seats from the 1950s to the 1970s, while South Carolina, Louisiana and ] remained static.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} | |||
| The "Year of Birmingham" in 1963 highlighted racial issues in Alabama. Through the spring, there were marches and demonstrations to end legal segregation. The Movement's achievements in settlement with the local business class were overshadowed by bombings and murders by the ], most notoriously in the deaths of four girls in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.<ref name="McWhorter">{{cite book|last=McWhorter|first=Diane|title=Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=2001|accessdate=2008-08-02|isbn=0-684-80747-5 |oclc=45376386}}</ref> | |||
| After the Democrat ] was elected as ], he emphasized the connection between states' rights and segregation, both in speeches and by creating crises to provoke Federal intervention. He opposed integration at the ], and collaborated with the Ku Klux Klan in 1963 in disrupting court-ordered integration of public schools in Birmingham.<ref name="McWhorter" /> | |||
| ] won his home state of Arizona and five states in the ], depicted in red. The Southern states, traditionally Democratic up to that time, voted Republican primarily as a statement of opposition to the ], which had been passed in Congress earlier that year. Capturing 61.1% of the popular vote and 486 electors, Johnson won in a landslide. Note that ] went to Johnson as he was its ].]] | |||
| Many of the ] Democrats were attracted to the ] of conservative Republican Senator ] of ]. Goldwater was notably more conservative than previous Republican nominees, such as ]. Goldwater's principal opponent in the ], Governor ] of ], was widely seen as representing the more moderate, ], Northern wing of the party (see ], ]).{{Citation needed|date=March 2015}} | |||
| In the ], Goldwater ran a conservative campaign that broadly opposed strong action by the federal government. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation, Goldwater decided to oppose the ].<ref name=cra64>{{cite web|url=http://finduslaw.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964_cra_title_vii_equal_employment_opportunities_42_us_code_chapter_21 |title=Civil Rights Act of 1964 - CRA - Title VII - Equal Employment Opportunities - 42 US Code Chapter 21 |publisher=Finduslaw.com |accessdate=January 22, 2012}}</ref> He believed that this act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and, second, that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose, even if the choice is based on racial discrimination. (In many instances, southern whites wanted the business of blacks but on their terms, for instance, restricting their use of water fountains, lunch counters, and dressing rooms in department stores.){{Citation needed|date=March 2015}} | |||
| Goldwater's position appealed to white Southern Democrats, and Goldwater was the first Republican presidential candidate since ] to win the electoral votes of the Deep South states (Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina). Outside the South, Goldwater's negative vote on the Civil Rights Act proved devastating to his campaign; the only other state he won was his home one of Arizona, contributing to his landslide defeat in 1964. A ] ad called "Confessions of a Republican," which ran in the North, associated Goldwater with the ]. At the same time, Johnson’s campaign in the ] publicized Goldwater’s support for pre-1964 civil rights legislation. In the end, Johnson swept the election.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Gregg|first1=Khyree|title=Election of 1964|url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1964|website=American Presidency Project|publisher=American Presidency Project|accessdate=6 May 2015}}</ref> | |||
| At the time, Goldwater was at odds in his position with most of the prominent members of the Republican Party, dominated by so-called Eastern Establishment and Midwestern Progressives. A higher percentage of the Republican Party supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964<ref name="cra64"/> than did the Democratic Party, as they had on all previous Civil Rights legislation. The ] mostly opposed their Northern Party mates — and their presidents (Kennedy and Johnson) on civil rights issues. | |||
| In some Republican circles, the election after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was termed, "The Great Betrayal".{{citation needed|date=March 2015}} Although some Republicans were defeated in the election, national party support for this important law did not attract black voters to the Republican fold in the North. In the South, most black voters were still disenfranchised. When Democratic Senator ] was re-elected from Middle Tennessee; a majority of the still limited number of black voters in the region cast their votes for him as a Democrat, although he personally had voted against the Civil Rights Act.{{Citation needed|date=March 2015}} | |||
| ==Roots of the Southern strategy== | |||
| Lyndon Johnson was concerned that his endorsement of Civil Rights legislation would endanger his party in the South. In the ], ] saw the cracks in the ] as an opportunity to tap into a group of voters who had historically been beyond the reach of the ]. George Wallace had exhibited a strong candidacy in that election, where he garnered 46 electoral votes and nearly 10 million popular votes, attracting mostly southern Democrats away from ].<ref>] (March 5, 2006). . {{subscription required}} ''The Boston Globe.'' Retrieved 2007-02-11</ref><ref>Thomas R. Dye, Louis Schubert, Harmon Zeigler. , Cengage Learning. 2011</ref><ref>Ted Van Dyk. , ''Wall Street Journal'', 2008</ref> | |||
| African Americans continued to push in politics and began to gain national office: US Senator ] of Massachusetts was elected in 1966 as the first African-American senator since Reconstruction; ] co-founded the ] that same year in ]. ] was elected from New York in 1968 as the first African-American woman to be a Congresswoman; ] would be elected to Congress in 1972 from Georgia and later was elected as mayor of Atlanta; all these rising leaders had benefited by the work of Rev. ] | |||
| By this point, King had led the ] in major protests and demonstrations in the South to raise awareness of civil rights issues. He was awarded the ]. His work contributed to passage of civil rights legislation, especially the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His assassination in 1968 generated grief and despair; African Americans rioted in many inner-city areas in major cities throughout the country. King's policy of non-violence had already been challenged by other African-American leaders, such as ] and ] of the ] (SNCC). | |||
| The notion of ] advocated by SNCC leaders captured some of the frustrations of African Americans at the slow process of change in gaining civil rights and social justice. African Americans pushed for faster change, raising racial tensions.<ref>Zinn, Howard (1999) '']'' New York:HarperCollins, 457-461</ref> Journalists reporting about the demonstrations against the Vietnam War often featured young people engaging in violence or burning draft cards and American flags.<ref>Zinn, Howard (1999) ''A People's History of the United States'' New York:HarperCollins, 491</ref> Conservatives were also dismayed about the many young adults engaged in the ] ] and "free love" (sexual ]), in what was called the "]" ]. These actions scandalized many Americans and created a concern about law and order. | |||
| ] | |||
| Nixon's advisers recognized that they could not appeal directly to voters on issues of ] or racism. White House Chief of Staff ] noted that Nixon "emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognized this while not appearing to."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Robin|first1=Corey|authorlink1=Corey Robin|title=The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=0-19-979393-X|page=50|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lolpAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA50&dq=%22southern%20strategy%22%20Corey%20Robin&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> With the aid of Harry Dent and ] ] ], who had switched to the Republican Party in 1964, Richard Nixon ran his 1968 campaign on ] and "law and order." ] accused Nixon of pandering to Southern whites, especially with regard to his "states' rights" and "law and order" positions, which were widely understood by black leaders to symbolize southern resistance to civil rights.<ref name="Johnson">{{cite news|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F0071FFF3B54157493C1A81783D85F4C8685F9 |title=Negro Leaders See Bias in Call Of Nixon for 'Law and Order'|last=Johnson|first=Thomas A.|date=August 13, 1968|publisher=The New York Times|page=27|accessdate=2008-08-02}}{{subscription required}}</ref> This tactic was described in 2007 by David Greenberg in '']'' as "]."<ref>{{cite news|last=Greenberg|first=David|title=Dog-Whistling Dixie: When Reagan said "states' rights," he was talking about race.|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2007/11/dogwhistling_dixie.html|newspaper=Slate|date=November 20, 2007|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64tCNJh08|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref> According to an article in ''The American Conservative,'' Nixon adviser and speechwriter ] disputed this characterization.<ref>, ''The American Conservative'' magazine</ref> | |||
| The independent candidacy of ], former Democratic governor of ], partially negated Nixon's Southern strategy.<ref>{{cite news|last=Childs|first=Marquis|title=Wallace's Victory Weakens Nixon's Southern Strategy|url=http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hy9IAAAAIBAJ&sjid=egANAAAAIBAJ&pg=1221,5431957&dq=southern-strategy&hl=en|newspaper=The Morning Record|date=June 8, 1970}}</ref> With a much more explicit attack on integration and black civil rights, Wallace won all of Goldwater's states (except ]), as well as ] and one of ]'s electoral votes. Nixon picked up ], ], ], ] and ], while Democratic nominee ] won only ] in the South. Writer ], who worked on the Nixon campaign as a ], said in 2006 that Nixon did not have a "Southern Strategy" but "Border State Strategy;" as he said that the 1968 campaign ceded the Deep South to George Wallace. Hart suggested that the press called it a "Southern Strategy" as they are "very lazy".<ref>{{cite video | people=] | date=2006-02-09 | title = The Making of the American Conservative Mind | medium=television | location=] | publisher=]}}</ref> | |||
| In the ], by contrast, Nixon won every state in the Union except Massachusetts, winning more than 70 percent of the popular vote in most of the Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina) and 61% of the national vote. He won more than 65 percent of the votes in the other states of the former ]. Nixon won 18% of the black vote nationwide. Despite his appeal to Southern whites, Nixon was widely perceived as a ] outside the South and won African-American votes on that basis. | |||
| ==Evolution== | ==Evolution== | ||
| ] | ] | ||
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| <blockquote>''Atwater:'' 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."<ref>{{cite news|title=Exclusive: Lee Atwater's Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy|author=Rick Perlstein|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy|website=]|date=November 13, 2012|accessdate=April 11, 2014}}</ref><ref>http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/what-did-lee-atwater-really-say.php</ref></blockquote> | <blockquote>''Atwater:'' 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."<ref>{{cite news|title=Exclusive: Lee Atwater's Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy|author=Rick Perlstein|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy|website=]|date=November 13, 2012|accessdate=April 11, 2014}}</ref><ref>http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/what-did-lee-atwater-really-say.php</ref></blockquote> | ||
| In 1980, Republican candidate ] launched his campaign at the Neshoba County Fair<ref>{{cite web|title=Ronald Reagan's Neshoba County Speech|url=http://www.c-span.org/video/?293124-1/ronald-reagans-neshoba-county-speech|website=C-SPAN|publisher=C-SPAN|accessdate=6/11/15}}</ref> near ], the county where the ] during 1964's ]. The ] he gave there was cited as evidence that the Republican Party was building upon the Southern strategy again.<ref name="HerbertReagan">{{cite news| url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13herbert.html | work=The New York Times | first=Bob | last=Herbert | title=Righting Reagan's Wrongs? | date=November 13, 2007|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64t9QbSNy|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399921,00.html |work=Time |first=Jack |last=White |title=Lott, Reagan and Republican Racism|date=December 14, 2002|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64t7SCrCn|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref><ref>Cannon, Lou (2003). '''', New York: Public Affairs, 477-78.</ref><ref>Michael Goldfield (1997) ''The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainspring of American Politics'', New York: The New Press, 314.</ref><ref>{{Cite book | isbn = 978-0-231-10419-7| page = 20 | last = Walton | first = Hanes | title = African American Power and Politics | year = 1997 }}</ref> Reagan's campaigns used racially-coded rhetoric, making attacks on the "]" and leveraging resentment towards ]. During his 1976 and 1980 campaigns Reagan employed stereotypes of welfare recipients, often invoking a ] with a large house and a Cadillac using multiple names to collect over $150,000 in tax-free income. His dog-whistle politics extended to field-testing language in the South referring to an unscrupulous man using food stamps as a "strapping young buck."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Aistrup|first1=Joseph A.|title=The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South|date=2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=0-8131-4792-1|page=44|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKMeBgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&dq=%22southern%20strategy%22%20%22welfare%20queen%22&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Haney-Lopez|first1=Ian|title=The racism at the heart of the Reagan presidency|url=http://www.salon.com/2014/01/11/the_racism_at_the_heart_of_the_reagan_presidency/|work=Salon|date=January 11, 2014|quote=Reagan also trumpeted his racial appeals in blasts against welfare cheats. On the stump, Reagan repeatedly invoked a story of a “Chicago welfare queen” with “eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”}}</ref> | In 1980, Republican candidate ] launched his campaign at the Neshoba County Fair<ref>{{cite web|title=Ronald Reagan's Neshoba County Speech|url=http://www.c-span.org/video/?293124-1/ronald-reagans-neshoba-county-speech|website=C-SPAN|publisher=C-SPAN|accessdate=6/11/15}}</ref> near ], the county where the ] during 1964's ]. The ] he gave there was cited as evidence that the Republican Party was building upon the Southern strategy again.<ref name="HerbertReagan">{{cite news| url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13herbert.html | work=The New York Times | first=Bob | last=Herbert | title=Righting Reagan's Wrongs? | date=November 13, 2007|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64t9QbSNy|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399921,00.html |work=Time |first=Jack |last=White |title=Lott, Reagan and Republican Racism|date=December 14, 2002|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64t7SCrCn|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref><ref>Cannon, Lou (2003). '''', New York: Public Affairs, 477-78.</ref><ref>Michael Goldfield (1997) ''The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainspring of American Politics'', New York: The New Press, 314.</ref><ref>{{Cite book | isbn = 978-0-231-10419-7| page = 20 | last = Walton | first = Hanes | title = African American Power and Politics | year = 1997 }}</ref> However, others disagree with this view. David Brooks noted that the campaign staff was unsure about attending the event but it was a major political rally spot (Used by Dukakis in 1988). Reagan did mention "state's rights" but in context of education and with little reaction from the audience. Brooks concludes by stating that the claim this was an appeal to racism is a distortion. <ref>{{cite news|last1=Brooks|first1=David|title=Rewriting history on Reagan speech|url=http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071110/news_lz1e10brooks.html|accessdate=6/17/2015|work=THE NEW YORK TIMES|publisher=The New York Times|date=November 10, 2007|ref=Brooks}}</ref> Kevin Drum, while critical of the campaign's decision to make an appearance at the fair and of Reagan's overall civil rights record, noted that Reagan routinely talked about states rights in a non-racial context and that Mississippi was a swing state at the time. Drum states that the accusations of racism in this presentation are "less than meets the eye"<ref>{{cite news|last1=Lathrop|first1=Ray|title=Reagan and Philadelphia|url=http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_06/004116.php|accessdate=6/17/2015|work=Washington Monthly|date=June 10, 2004}}</ref> | ||
| Reagan's campaigns used racially-coded rhetoric, making attacks on the "]" and leveraging resentment towards ]. During his 1976 and 1980 campaigns Reagan employed stereotypes of welfare recipients, often invoking a ] with a large house and a Cadillac using multiple names to collect over $150,000 in tax-free income. His dog-whistle politics extended to field-testing language in the South referring to an unscrupulous man using food stamps as a "strapping young buck."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Aistrup|first1=Joseph A.|title=The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South|date=2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=0-8131-4792-1|page=44|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKMeBgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&dq=%22southern%20strategy%22%20%22welfare%20queen%22&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Haney-Lopez|first1=Ian|title=The racism at the heart of the Reagan presidency|url=http://www.salon.com/2014/01/11/the_racism_at_the_heart_of_the_reagan_presidency/|work=Salon|date=January 11, 2014|quote=Reagan also trumpeted his racial appeals in blasts against welfare cheats. On the stump, Reagan repeatedly invoked a story of a “Chicago welfare queen” with “eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”}}</ref> | |||
| Reagan was upset by the accusations of racism in his campaign, stating,"Because I said I believed states should be allowed to regain the rights and powers granted to them in the Constitution, he implied I was a racist pandering to Southern voters."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Murdock|first1=Deroy|title=Reagan, No Racist|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222886/reagan-no-racist-deroy-murdock|website=National Review|accessdate=6/17/2015|ref=Murdock}}</ref> | |||
| Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222886/reagan-no-racist-deroy-murdock | |||
| In addition to presidential campaigns, Democratic charges of racism have been made about subsequent Republican campaigns for the ] and ] in the South. The ] commercials used by supporters of ] against ] in the ] were considered by many Democrats, including ], ], and many newspaper editors, to be racist. The 1990 re-election campaign of ] attacked his opponent's alleged support of "racial quotas," most notably through an ad in which a white person's hands are seen crumpling a letter indicating that he was denied a job because of the color of his skin.<ref> on ]</ref> | In addition to presidential campaigns, Democratic charges of racism have been made about subsequent Republican campaigns for the ] and ] in the South. The ] commercials used by supporters of ] against ] in the ] were considered by many Democrats, including ], ], and many newspaper editors, to be racist. The 1990 re-election campaign of ] attacked his opponent's alleged support of "racial quotas," most notably through an ad in which a white person's hands are seen crumpling a letter indicating that he was denied a job because of the color of his skin.<ref> on ]</ref> | ||
| Line 96: | Line 25: | ||
| Some analysts viewed the 1990s as the apogee of ] or the Southern strategy, given that the Democratic president ] and vice-president ] were from the South, as were Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.<ref name="Adam Nossiter 2008">{{cite news|last=Nossiter|first=Adam|title=For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/us/politics/11south.html?pagewanted=all|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 10, 2008|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64szQ8Ey6|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref> During the end of Nixon's presidency, the Senators representing the former Confederate states in the ] were primarily Democrats. During the beginning of Bill Clinton's, 20 years later in the ], this was still the case. | Some analysts viewed the 1990s as the apogee of ] or the Southern strategy, given that the Democratic president ] and vice-president ] were from the South, as were Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.<ref name="Adam Nossiter 2008">{{cite news|last=Nossiter|first=Adam|title=For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/us/politics/11south.html?pagewanted=all|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 10, 2008|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64szQ8Ey6|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref> During the end of Nixon's presidency, the Senators representing the former Confederate states in the ] were primarily Democrats. During the beginning of Bill Clinton's, 20 years later in the ], this was still the case. | ||
| ==Shift in strategy== | |||
| While running for President, Clinton promised to "end welfare as we have come to know it" while in office.<ref name="promise">{{cite news |first=Barbara| last=Vobejda| title= Clinton Signs Welfare Bill Amid Division |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/welfare/stories/wf082396.htm |publisher='']'' |date=August 22, 1996 |accessdate=2013-10-21 }}</ref> In 1996, Clinton would fulfill his campaign promise and one manifestation of the longtime GOP goal of major ] was passed. After two welfare reform bills sponsored by the GOP-controlled Congress were successfully vetoed by the President,<ref name=salonafr /> a compromise was eventually reached; Clinton signed the ] into law on August 22, 1996.<ref name="promise" /> Around this time, the main focus the Southern Strategy had drifted away from race-related campaign issues and shifted towards cultural issues, such as the preservation of ] in American society.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Aistrup|first1=Joseph A.|title=The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South|date=2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=0-8131-4792-1|page=56-58|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKMeBgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA44&dq=%22southern%20strategy%22%20%22welfare%20queen%22&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref> | |||
| In the mid-1990s, the Republican Party made major attempts to court African-American voters, believing that the strength of religious values within the African-American community and the growing number of affluent and middle-class African Americans would lead this group increasingly to support Republican candidates.<ref name=uooozv> Facts on File.com</ref> An early example of this shift showed during the 1996 Presidential election, when Republican Presidential nominee ] chose ] as his running mate. The New York Congressman had long advocated for urban revitalization projects, a position to appeal to inner-city blacks.<ref name="NY Times 1996" /><ref name="NY Times 1996" /> General ], an African American who gained national recognition for his role in ]'s success, announced he was a registered Republican.<ref name="NY Times 1996" /> (He later was appointed as Secretary of State in the Bush administration.) | |||
| Though the Republican Party attracted the interests of some African-American voters,<ref name=uooozv /> the group still remained loyal to the Democratic Party.<ref name="NY Times 1996" /><ref name=uooozv /> During his time in office, Clinton connected greatly with the Africans Americans.<ref name=salonafr> - interview with DeWayne Wickham, ], Suzy Hansen, published February 22, 2002, accessed October 21, 2013.</ref> Born into a poor, Southern working-class family, Clinton life and social-economic status growing up resembled that of many African Americans. Since his youth, Clinton had befriended several African Americans. He was easy about making these friendships public since his time as Governor of Arkansas.<ref name=salonafr /> In addition to his background,<ref name=salonafr /> Clinton's policies and decisions to appoint numerous African Americans in his cabinet helped him cement his status among those voters.<ref name=salonafr /> <!--he did other things, as well-->By the time he left office, Clinton's popularity in the African American community surpassed that of ] and longtime African American civil rights activist ], according to polls. His administration strengthened African-American loyalty to the Democratic Party.<ref name=salonafr /> | |||
| ===21st century=== | |||
| Few African Americans voted for ] and other national Republican candidates in the 2004 elections, although he attracted a higher percentage of black voters than had any GOP candidate since President ].{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} Following Bush's re-election, ], Bush's campaign manager and Chairman of the ], held several large meetings in 2005 with African-American business, community, and religious leaders. In his speeches, he apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the past. When asked about the strategy of using race as an issue to build GOP dominance in the once-Democratic South, Mehlman replied, | |||
| <blockquote>"Republican candidates often have prospered by ignoring black voters and even by exploiting racial tensions," and, "by the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African-American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out. Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."<ref name="Allen">{{cite news|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071302342.html|title=RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes|last=Allen|first=Mike|date=July 14, 2005|publisher=Washington Post|accessdate=2008-08-02|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/64tEumSuH|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Benedetto|first=Richard|title=GOP: 'We were wrong' to play racial politics|url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-14-GOP-racial-politics_x.htm|accessdate=January 22, 2012|newspaper=USA Today|date=July 14, 2005}}</ref></blockquote> | |||
| The election of President Barack Obama saw a new type of Southern strategy emerge among conservative voters. His election is utilized as evidence of a ] to deny the need of continued civil rights legislation, while simultaneously playing on racial tensions and marking him as a "racial bogeyman".<ref name="Edge"/> Thomas Edge described three parts to this phenomenon saying: | |||
| <blockquote>"First, according to the arguments, a nation that has the ability to elect a Black president is completely free of racism. Second, attempts to continue the remedies enacted after the civil rights movement will only result in more racial discord, demagoguery, and racism against ''White Americans''. Third, these tactics are used side-by-side with the veiled racism and coded language of the ''original'' Southern Strategy."<ref name="Edge">{{cite journal|last1=Edge|first1=Thomas|title=Southern Strategy 2.0: Conservatives, White Voters, and the Election of Barack Obama|journal=Journal of Black Studies|date=January 2010|volume=40|issue=3|pages=426–444|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/40648600}}</ref></blockquote> | |||
| ===Southern strategy and Southernization=== | |||
| In 2005, ] chairman ] formally apologized to the ] for exploiting racial polarization to win elections and ignoring the black vote.<ref name="Mehlman">{{cite news|last=Rondy|first=John|title=GOP ignored black vote, chairman says: RNC head apologizes at NAACP meeting|url=http://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=http://www.webcitation.org/64t1tyBbe|archivedate=January 22, 2012|deadurl=no}}</ref> But two days after his address to the NAACP he characterized this as a general strategy, not particularly Southern: "It always interests me when people say it was a Southern strategy. The fact is that folks in the North, the South, the East and the West sometimes did this."<ref>Transcript of ''CNN Late Edition'' with Wolf Blitzer from July 17, 2005 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/17/le.01.html retrieved 10/14/2013</ref> | |||
| In a ''New York Times'' article writer Adam Nossiter quoted three political scientists who considered the decisive victory of Democratic Senator ] in the ] and subsequent ] to represent the lessened influence of Southernization in national politics: | |||
| *Wayne Parent, a political scientist at ], said that "The region’s absence from Mr. Obama’s winning formula means it's becoming distinctly less important,... The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics."<ref name="Adam Nossiter 2008"/> | |||
| *], a political scientist at the ], stated that the Republicans had become "a Southernized party.... They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party," noting that he believed ] was over and that the South was no longer needed to win national elections.<ref name="Adam Nossiter 2008"/> | |||
| *], an expert on the region’s politics at ] in ], said the Republican Party went too far in appealing to the South, alienating voters elsewhere. 'They’ve maxed out on the South,' he said, which has 'limited their appeal in the rest of the country.'"<ref name="Adam Nossiter 2008"/> | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{Reflist|33em}} | |||
| ==Further reading== <!--(put additions in alphabetical order, please)--> | |||
| *Aistrup, Joseph A. , Kentucky Press | |||
| *Alexander, Michelle. ''The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness'', The New Press, New York, 2010 (ISBN 978-1-59558-103-7). | |||
| *Applebome, Peter. ''Dixie Rising: How the South is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture'' (ISBN 0-15-600550-6). | |||
| *Black, Earl; Black, Merle. , Harvard University Press | |||
| *Boyd, James. , ''New York Times'', May 17, 1970 | |||
| *Buchanan, Patrick J. , December 2002, Patrick Buchanan Official Website | |||
| *Carter, Dan T. ''From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994'' (ISBN 0-8071-2366-8) | |||
| *Carter, Dan T. ''The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of Southern Politics'' (ISBN 0-8071-2597-0) | |||
| *Chappell, David L. ''A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow'' (ISBN 0-8078-2819-X) | |||
| *Egerton, John. "", ''Southern Spaces'', 29 November 2006. | |||
| *Kruse, Kevin M. ''White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism'' (ISBN 0-691-09260-5) by | |||
| *Phillips, Kevin. ''The Emerging Republican Majority'' (ISBN 0-87000-058-6) | |||
| *UPI, , 23 February 2001, at NewsMax | |||
| {{Racism}} | |||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Southern Strategy}} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
Revision as of 16:32, 17 June 2015
Evolution
As civil rights grew more accepted throughout the nation, basing a general election strategy on appeals to "states' rights," which some would have believed opposed civil rights laws, would have resulted in a national backlash. The concept of "states' rights" was considered by some to be subsumed within a broader meaning than simply a reference to civil rights laws. States rights became seen as encompassing a type of New Federalism that would return local control of race relations.
Republican strategist Lee Atwater discussed the Southern strategy in a 1981 interview later published in Southern Politics in the 1990s by Alexander P. Lamis.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is 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 hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
Atwater, in the same interview cited by Herbert, also stated that Reagan did not use such a strategy in his run for office:
Atwater: 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."
In 1980, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan launched his campaign at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the county where the three civil rights workers were lynched during 1964's Freedom Summer. The "I believe in states' rights" speech he gave there was cited as evidence that the Republican Party was building upon the Southern strategy again. However, others disagree with this view. David Brooks noted that the campaign staff was unsure about attending the event but it was a major political rally spot (Used by Dukakis in 1988). Reagan did mention "state's rights" but in context of education and with little reaction from the audience. Brooks concludes by stating that the claim this was an appeal to racism is a distortion. Kevin Drum, while critical of the campaign's decision to make an appearance at the fair and of Reagan's overall civil rights record, noted that Reagan routinely talked about states rights in a non-racial context and that Mississippi was a swing state at the time. Drum states that the accusations of racism in this presentation are "less than meets the eye" Reagan's campaigns used racially-coded rhetoric, making attacks on the "welfare state" and leveraging resentment towards affirmative action. During his 1976 and 1980 campaigns Reagan employed stereotypes of welfare recipients, often invoking a welfare queen with a large house and a Cadillac using multiple names to collect over $150,000 in tax-free income. His dog-whistle politics extended to field-testing language in the South referring to an unscrupulous man using food stamps as a "strapping young buck." Reagan was upset by the accusations of racism in his campaign, stating,"Because I said I believed states should be allowed to regain the rights and powers granted to them in the Constitution, he implied I was a racist pandering to Southern voters."
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222886/reagan-no-racist-deroy-murdock
In addition to presidential campaigns, Democratic charges of racism have been made about subsequent Republican campaigns for the House of Representatives and Senate in the South. The Willie Horton commercials used by supporters of George H. W. Bush against Michael Dukakis in the election of 1988 were considered by many Democrats, including Jesse Jackson, Lloyd Bentsen, and many newspaper editors, to be racist. The 1990 re-election campaign of Jesse Helms attacked his opponent's alleged support of "racial quotas," most notably through an ad in which a white person's hands are seen crumpling a letter indicating that he was denied a job because of the color of his skin.
New York Times opinion columnist Bob Herbert wrote in 2005 that "The truth is that there was very little that was subconscious about the G.O.P.'s relentless appeal to racist whites. Tired of losing elections, it saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks." Scholars have also described the transition of the Southern strategy saying that it has "evolved from a states’ rights, racially conservative message to one promoting in the Nixon years, vis-à-vis the courts, a racially conservative interpretation of civil rights laws—including opposition to busing. With the ascendancy of Reagan, the Southern Strategy became a national strategy that melded race, taxes, anticommunism, and religion."
In later decades, some analysts made the argument that Southern whites' move to the Republican Party had more to do with economic interests than racism. In The End of Southern Exceptionalism, political scientists Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer argued that Republican dominance in the South was driven by increasing numbers of wealthy suburbanites. Conversely, other scholarship has reaffirmed the role of racial factors: in 2005, Valentino and Sears reported that "the South's shift to the Republican party has been driven to a significant degree by racial conservatism".
Some analysts viewed the 1990s as the apogee of Southernization or the Southern strategy, given that the Democratic president Bill Clinton and vice-president Al Gore were from the South, as were Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. During the end of Nixon's presidency, the Senators representing the former Confederate states in the 93rd Congress were primarily Democrats. During the beginning of Bill Clinton's, 20 years later in the 103rd Congress, this was still the case.
- Cite error: The named reference
Counterwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Cite error: The named reference
Branchwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Aistrup, Joseph A. (2015). The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South. University Press of Kentucky. p. 48. ISBN 0-8131-4792-1.
- ^ Herbert, Bob (October 6, 2005). "Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - Lamis, Alexander P. (1999). Southern Politics in the 1990s. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 7–8. ISBN 978-0-8071-2374-4.
- Rick Perlstein (November 13, 2012). "Exclusive: Lee Atwater's Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy". The Nation. Retrieved April 11, 2014.
- http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/what-did-lee-atwater-really-say.php
- "Ronald Reagan's Neshoba County Speech". C-SPAN. C-SPAN. Retrieved 6/11/15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - Herbert, Bob (November 13, 2007). "Righting Reagan's Wrongs?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - White, Jack (December 14, 2002). "Lott, Reagan and Republican Racism". Time. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - Cannon, Lou (2003). Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power, New York: Public Affairs, 477-78.
- Michael Goldfield (1997) The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainspring of American Politics, New York: The New Press, 314.
- Walton, Hanes (1997). African American Power and Politics. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-231-10419-7.
- Brooks, David (November 10, 2007). "Rewriting history on Reagan speech". THE NEW YORK TIMES. The New York Times. Retrieved 6/17/2015.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - Lathrop, Ray (June 10, 2004). "Reagan and Philadelphia". Washington Monthly. Retrieved 6/17/2015.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - Aistrup, Joseph A. (2015). The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South. University Press of Kentucky. p. 44. ISBN 0-8131-4792-1.
- Haney-Lopez, Ian (January 11, 2014). "The racism at the heart of the Reagan presidency". Salon.
Reagan also trumpeted his racial appeals in blasts against welfare cheats. On the stump, Reagan repeatedly invoked a story of a "Chicago welfare queen" with "eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."
- Murdock, Deroy. "Reagan, No Racist". National Review. Retrieved 6/17/2015.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - Helms' "Hands" campaign ad on YouTube
- Aistrup, Joseph A. The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-down Advancement in the South University Press of Kentucky, 1996
- Risen, Clay (December 10, 2006). "The Myth of 'the Southern Strategy'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - Valentino NA, Sears DO (2005). "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South" (PDF). American Journal of Political Science. 49: 672–688. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00136.x.
- Nossiter, Adam (November 10, 2008). "For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help)