TN gop flyer: Vote "To Preserve Your Way Of Life"

[Rose Siding]

Boy, I haven't heard that phrase in a long time. From the article linked at TPM Election Central:

The Tennessee Republican Party has sent out a flier with the tag line “Vote early to preserve your way of life” across the top....

In earlier decades, some white leaders used similar language in opposing civil rights for blacks, though Zivic was reluctant to draw a direct connection to fights over desegregation.
...
The executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party, Chris Devaney, denied that the mailing had any racial implications. “To suggest that our mailing has racial overtones is just absurd,” Devaney told the Forward....

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/oct/26/tn_sen_gop_flyer_urges_vote_to_preserve_your_way_of_life#comment

[Thickasabrick]

1. Well - if people think their way of life sucks maybe they'll vote for

the other candidate. Stupid pugs.

[LSdemocrat]

2. I hope that this is finally the year the GOP learns that this shit won't work anymore

Despite some of my misgivings about Ford, I really hope he wins in a landslide because of all the crap the GOP is trying to pull.

[Sensitivity]

5. Let's be HONEST. Ford is NOT WINNING. RNC is using Racist Strategy.

The black effect is always there -- 5+% always say they will vote for the
Black candidates when they never will -- So Ford is at least 5 points behind.

The issue is that after 40 years the DNC has not figured out how
to hammer the Pukes when they use these tactics. The PARTY owes at least that
to its faithfull African American constituents. Hand-wringing will not do.

No response effectively means that the racist tactics are accepted
-- as long as they pull back before it is too embarrasing to all.

[SouthernBelle82]

12. Well not only that but

isn't Ford half white as well? I thought I had read he was in the Black Commentator once when they did an article on him.

[immoderate]

18. So he's 2-1/2% behind?

:shrug:

--IMM

[Hosnon]

3. I don't get it. Aren't we voting these idiots out because we don't like the

current "way of life"?

He's not saying anything new. It might as well say: "Vote to Keep the Republicans in Power"

[Rose Siding]

9. No, it doesn't say anything new. It's a very old, racist sentiment

What it says is "Keep Whites In Power"

[WCGreen]

4. Marvelous.....

Let's pray this type of tactic finally backfires...

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maxsolomon]

7. Change is the only constant

our "way of life" has a shelf life of the price of oil staying under $3/gallon. after that, go get a gun & lots of ammo. you'll need it to protect your garden.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. "Our way of life will be 'Gone with the Wind'"--Give me a break!

.Besides the 1939 Vivian Leigh/Clark Gable movie, the theme of this Republican ad is reminiscent of a book that was reviewed on CSPAN-2 last weekend, and may be re-run this coming weekend.

Nostalgia for those cotton-pickin' 'Good Ole Days' is rife in Tennessee, considering the number of Stars and Bars flags flying throughout the state. And IMO Corker's voice sounds like a super-slo-mo old-time tobacco auctioneer's.

From http://www.amazon.com/There-Goes-Everything-Southerners-1945-1975/dp/0307263568 :

"There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975; by Jason Sokol

From Publishers Weekly-- The experiences of white Southerners during the period of the Civil Rights movement have, until now, gone largely unexplored. Sokol, a doctoral candidate in history at UC-Berkeley, traces the process of desegregation by drawing on public records and interviews conducted with white Southerners as they faced the tide of change brought by Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sokol actively resists easy generalizations or stereotypes of the men and women whose rejection of equal rights created the central tension of the Civil Rights movement. Instead of stock characters, Sokol presents individuals„such as Ollie McClung, whose opposition to integration stemmed, at least in part, from a belief in personal liberty„as well as hundreds of voices for whom change meant "their world would never be the same."...

The civil rights movement of the postwar years radically altered the old American order and set black Americans on the road toward genuine rights and equal opportunity, but it did much more than that. Concentrated in the South, where oppression and exploitation of blacks had been routine for centuries, the movement "struck at the very foundations of southern life." It "altered race relations, overturned ingrained practices, subverted traditions, ushered in political change, transformed institutions, undermined a way of life, and even turned cities upside down." Its history usually is written in terms of the gains it achieved for blacks, but Jason Sokol argues that the changes it wrought among whites were profound and lasting ..."

[SouthernBelle82]

13. Very interesting

This really explains a lot. At first I was even thinking perhaps this is the old "ooo liberals are going to come after you" type of thing with gay marriage, abortions for all etc. They've been really trying to label Ford as "an evil liberal" even though he is far from it and is quite conservative for a democrat (too much so for this liberal's liking) but I do think it's interesting. I've also noticed in the racists Corker ad they have only white people mainly speaking. I never really paid much attention to that so I'll have to look again when it comes on.

[AspenRose]

10. This is one reason why liberals can't afford to 'write off' the south

In my days here at DU I've seen plenty of "f*ck the south" bashing threads. Truth be told, Democrats and liberals need to take the south back. If Harold Ford's treatment is any indication, as long as the GOP has a stranglehold on the south, any viable black candidate (who would almost certainly be liberal) can forget about running for office, and forget about winning, because race baiting will always be the winning strategy for the GOP.

A good Democratic grassroots effort throughout the south would yield some neutralization of that effect.

[SouthernBelle82]

16. I agree

There was this really amazing canidate here for Congress in Chattanooga who was very much anti-Iraq war and he was a Vietnam veteran and a fighting democrat and talking with him through Email once or twice and listening to his interview's and his blog he had he appeared to be very liberal but the more conservative person won the primary. Of course I don't really know how close the race was or not but he would have been a lot better choice but because he wasn't afraid to speak the truth and appear at anti-war rally's I think that is what got him and my area is still conservative.

[SouthernBelle82]

11. Sometimes all you have to do

is put the pieces together. Look at all Corker is doing towards Ford. Nothing but attacking him personally. Corker isn't talking about the issues or anything like that. The only ad where he is talking about issues that I have seen here in Tennessee (Chattanooga) is towards the "values voters." It seems to me Corker is running in that direction even though during the primary he, it seemed to me, was trying to be more of the sane voice. Don't forget that earlier this summer Corker added one of the main guys from the SBVT liars to his team (this I read at the chattanoogan.com).

[greeneyedboy]

14. Ford's poll numbers have increased. still only 5% lead, but it's a lead.

and i am tired of reading the self-fulfilling prophecy / GOP rallying cry about how poll numbers for African Americans have been incorrect in the past therefore they MUST be incorrect this time. too soon to tell on that, obviously; meanwhile it only serves to discourage people on OUR side.

go Harold!

[SouthernBelle82]

17. That's their whole point

which is why I'm glad people aren't falling for it and are still working hard and really pushing. Too bad Ford couldn't have some big name democrats come out and support him like Obama, Kerry and anyone else available.

[SouthernBelle82]

15. I was also wondering

when did this flyer start going around? I'm asking because the local news here (all stations) have been reporting that people have really come out for early voting and all the reporters you can tell in their voices are really quite surprised. Whenever though they show Ford and Corker events there always appears to be more people present at least at the Ford events. Even here in Chattanooga when Ford had an early GOTV rally he had way more people then Corker.