A 'Southern Strategy' for a new generation
By Steve Benen Tuesday Nov 06, 2007 3:49pmThere was some talk in Republican circles that using race as a wedge was simply no longer a viable political strategy in the 21st century. It led then-RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, for example, to address the NAACP in 2005, in order to acknowledge how wrong the party has been on the issue. He conceded that Republicans, for decades, tried to “benefit politically from racial polarization.” Mehlman concluded, “I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
So, can we throw Republican Southern Strategies into the dustbin of history? Apparently, not yet.
Strategists for Rudy Giuliani are quietly preparing a significantly race-based campaign strategy to strengthen support among socially conservative white voters, in the South as well as in the North. […]
Giuliani’s eight years as New York’s chief executive exemplified a Northern adaptation of the GOP’s politically successful “Southern strategy” - the strategy playing on white resistance to and resentment of federal legislation passed in the 1960s mandating desegregation - resistance that produced a realignment in the South and fractured the Democratic loyalties of white working class voters in the urban North from 1968 to 2004.
It’s hard to know exactly what this strategy would look like in practice, but Tom Edsall’s report suggests Giuliani will appeal to white conservatives by emphasizing his conflicts with NYC’s African-American community. The idea, apparently, is to deflect attention from his positions on abortion, gays, guns, and immigration by pointing to race — the implicit message being: “How liberal can Giuliani be if he constantly fought with black people in New York?”
Shameless.
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He conceded that Republicans, for decades, tried to “benefit politically from racial polarization.”
Holy crap!
Frist get Edwards to blow their strategy away.
Doh!
I wonder how hard they are trying to link terrorism to the black minorities. I bet they bring up that shit in Florida from a few years ago. Home grown terrorism in minority populations, that's gonna be his spin on terrorism when it actually comes to the nationals.
Geebus! This republicon party just never quits with the crap, do they?! So looking forward to having none of them around.
If Republicans stop playing the southern strategy they would lose 95% of their base.
Peace.
oh yeah!!!! well all i can say is "Condi Rice"
see... right there... Bush's and the GOP's racial strategy...
obviously Lieberman is their Jewish strategy
and most of the GOP congress is their GAY strategy
--------------- GOP - Party of the Big Tent (in their pants)
wow, just when you thought an italian couldn't get any slimier. perhaps the dems should spend less time attacking hillary and more time pointing out what racist, homophobic, xenophobic douchebags the republicans are.
Ken Mehlman! Now there's an annoying character! Where's ol' "Toothy" McWavyhands been, anyway?
in America we have a great Constitution to guide us. apparently, the only time any white male US citizen wants it to apply,is when they are not getting their way. the rest of the time they are trying to deny everyone else their rights. and before you all slam me, i am a 60yr old white man who is embarrassed by the direction this country is taking to the gutter and lower.
That's another repug myth that will go over like a lead balloon.
I didn't know black folks like repugs or could be molded.
How amazingly scummy! It is so very Giuliani.
Maybe off topic, but I had to post somewhere ... I open up the Times and see the following 2 headlines:
Prosecutors Plan to Seek Charges Against Kerik
Followed by ... wait for it -
Pat Robertson Endorses Giuliani for President
My God what does it take to open these peoples eyes???
MHealy @ 4:
They better not link terrorism to black minorities. What color was the dude who caused the Oklahoma City bombing?
The blacks aren't the problem in this country or the world. It's the white anglo-saxon male who's the problem dating back hundreds of years. And its simple - they want the world to be like them. Look at all the PNACers - all white. The reason for all the terrorism is backlash for the way we intrude on other people's lives.
We get our nose in everyone's business and their resources. Our allies end up being our enemies. We ally ourself with groups and cultures only when it serves our purposes. The White man is the scourge of this earth. And yes I'm white, a former Republican, and sick or the way we run roughshod over everything. If anyone deserves lynching, its the white bastards who screw up this country.
The white men are the terrorists. Leave the black folks out of this. They were disenfranchised in the last election and now they are getting the wrap for terrorism? No way. They better not go there. Geez, I hate my race.
Yet, reich-wingers and the nitwit scum at Faux will screech at ear piercing levels that libruls are racists.
I've been saying for quite awhile that there are only two tunes to which most southerners will gladly cut a rug at the rethuglican dance: "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "Dixie." Since Rudy apparently does opera and not christian hymns, he's left with only one record to play from the rethug's southern-modified jingoistic jukebox, which is the latter, "Dixie." Whistling Past Dixie, indeed.
A racial strategy in "the South?" Are you kidding? Like NY was happily integrated? Like racism exists nowhere else? Like the South is some strange outpost only the slow-witted live in? Like my roads/taxes/schools aren't experiencing explosive growth because all kinds of people are moving to "the South?"
How ridiculous. "The South" is no more monolithic than any other region. While everyone decries this "strategy," you might want to ask if it would work in YOUR home town.
Condi is black? That's news to me!
leave no mouth-breather behind
Conflict with African American community. You mean like when NYPD anally raped Abner Louima with a night stick? Or when they gunned down Amadou Dialou because he was standing in a doorway? What on earth has this country come to when a crazy, opportunistic, lying simulacrum of a human being like Guilani is the front runner for a major party. Even the Republican party.
Ruthy can brag about Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo to make his point to his southern prospects.
Or Ruthy can brag that the City of New York paid out over 200 million dollars in a two-year span for lawsuits brought against the city for police brutality. Ruthy's biggest problem was that once he let the brutal genie out of the bottle, his police literally attacked every person they confronted.
I personally watched the police berate a man who came to the police station to report that he had been assaulted and then the police told him they were NOT going to investigate the matter. They would not even let the man file a report. They were "too busy". Believe me, that's one of many things I saw as an NY resident.
[no offense intended to anyone whose name is Ruth.]
Chip @ 14:
I have no doubt in my mind that he'll push terrorism in the homeland. it'll be his major talking point, he won't limit it to just black minorities though. Hell, chances are he'll focus on the south of the border more than them. He won't rule any minority group out though. You know as well as I do the perfect segue from 9/11 to immigration is through minorities as terrorists.
The South Will Rise Again !!! Yeehaw !!!
And Chimp Bush is our modern day Robert E Lee. Yeehaw !!!!
With Bush as our the eternal S(outhern) B(aptist) C(onvention) sanctioned-Savior and Deliverer from Satan, and Fox News as our pure brethren messenger of good-ole news, and Limbaugh/Savage/Beck and not to forget the almighty hilly-billy white angels (oxycontin) as our propaganda patriots, the South will rise again !!!!
Yeehaw !!!
(all smirks aside, btw NASCAR SUCKS ! NASCAR is like GOP mindset, stay the course, and keeps circling the same course/issue all day to see who can crash first and outlast the rest)
I live in the redest county in one of the redest states. Around here, his appeal is simply racist. The consensus here is "h'll keep 'em in their place".
Let's ask ourselves a simple question: Is racism any where's near as much of an issue as it was in 1968? I think the answer is clearly one big no. Heck, we've had two black secretaries of state in a row and a rather dusky-hued person just got elected governor of Louisiana. And like I said before, I've recently enjoyed the pleasure of having Evangelicals lecture me on racial tolerance like they're the one's who thought of it first. If you've read the Left Behind series or seen any of the movies—co-written by Timothy LeHaye, a graduate of the famously racist Bob Jones Non-Accredited University—you'll notice that the authors go out of their way to have sympathetic black characters, including a black president in the movie version.
Trying to revive the southern strategy strikes me as less of a threat and more of an indication of how pathetically the right is running on empty.
Having said that, Al Sharpton, who Giuliani famously ignored as mayor (and whom I'm quite certain is to be Exhibit A), really really is a first-class asshole, though you young 'uns are probably ignorant of the reasons why that's so and which a lot of you older 'uns seem to have filed in your own personal memory holes. Let's just say that falsely accusing people of rape and accusing those exercising reasonable skepticism of being racist is not exactly the best way to make conservatives look bad.
I hope that amoral nutcase does pursue that strategy. It will help put more nails into the coffin of the GOP as a viable political party. It will help isolate conservatives and force them to slink back into the woodwork to abide with the cockroaches who are their natural bretheren.
Well, I mean, c'mon: he ran a race-based law enforcement policy in New York City for all those years. Why do things differently now?
S'funny...I actually remember growing up in the South and hearing "WE don't vote Republican...LINCOLN was a Republican." Odd how things have changed.
It'll never work, Giuliani is a "freaking New Yorker", southerners hate New Yorkers. I do hope he gets the nomination because he's almost guaranteed to lose the general election largely for this reason.
Tom @ 29:
Not if he can illustrate that he has a EUGENIST platform. His entire program for cleaning up NYC has been racist from day one. He wants to apply doctrine from the Manhattan Insttute nationwide, & that means eliminating minorities & bohemians, & only governing rich whites.
Fine, let the GOP have the crazy South. A good book on this topic for all you strateegery wonks out there:
www.whistlingpastdixie.com
The problem for Giuliani is he's aiming it at folks he's supposed to win anyway. This could mean that he may be spending a lot of time after the nomination going around the country to shore up his base. The more the other repub candidates go after him the longer it's going to take for Rudy to convince conservatives he's really one of them.
That's great news for whichever dem wins the party nomination.
Bonkers @ 9:
He was last seen with an older gentleman who had a "wide stance". They were spotted near Mens-stall NO. 3 at the Minneaplois airport.
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