Just some good old fashioned family racism. Family Research Council defends Southern Strategy

[ck4829]

"A former Republican National Chairman is getting kudos from the liberal media for an odd thing. Veteran political reporter Dan Balz of the Washington Post applauds Ken Mehlman’s decency, reserving generous commendations for Mehlman’s efforts at “outreach” to black voters. He notes that Mehlman made a special effort to apologize to black voters for Richard Nixon’s “infamous” Southern strategy of 1968 and 1972.

For a savvy reporter like Balz, this is nonsense on stilts. Can anyone imagine Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine apologizing for Thomas Jefferson’s Southern strategy? Or Andrew Jackson’s? Woodrow Wilson’s? Franklin D. Roosevelt’s?"
- Robert Morrison is a Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/frc-defends-use-southern-strategy-completely-redefining-it

For those who don't know, the southern strategy was to push phrases like "state's rights" and "forced integration" as code words for, well, the n word. It was also to scream at racists that black people were becoming Democrats and something had to be done about it.

[OHdem10]

1. The Southern Strategy often refers to a deliberate move by the

Republican Party to turn the South Republican. Started
in Nixon years culminating in a Republican South in the
Regan years.(Tactics sometimes described as ugly and racist).
It apparently worked. A lot of Democrats turned Republican
including some House Members and Senators. Shelby, Ala and
Lott, Mississippi two highly recognizable members who changed
party.

[Kalyke]

2. But it didn't work... unless you call something working

nearly 30 years after the fact.

The South did not begin to turn solidly Republican until 1994 - two years after hate radio infested our AM airwaves. (FWIW, most of the country voted for Reagan. That's not a decent example).

In short, Nixon's Southern Strategy didn't work, but Rush Limbaugh and the Republican mass-purchase of rural radio stations did.