Monday, November 19, 2007

More on Republicans and Race

We recently posted about the intramural war of words that has broken out among New York Times' columnists over the issue of Republicans and their use of racial issues to gain electoral advantage.

The war isn't over, and Columnist Paul Krugman makes more valid points in his column today.

Krugman notes that "everyone knows" white men have turned away from the Democratic party over God, guns, national security and so on. But he says that is not true when the South is excluded. Research has shown that 40 percent of non-Southern white men voted Democratic in the 1952 presidential election, and that figure was virtually unchanged (39 percent) in 2004.

Southern voting patterns, Krugman says, are distinctive. Democrats decisively won the popular vote in last year's House elections, but Southern whites voted Republican by almost two to one.

Was this an accident? Krugman says even GOP leaders admit it was not. "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization." This came from Ken Mehlman, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.

Finally, Krugman returns to Reagan's campaign kickoff speech in 1980 at Philadelphia, MS. In December 1979, Krugman writes, the Republican national committeeman from Mississippi wrote a letter urging that the party's nominee speak at the Neshoba County Fair, just outside the town where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. It would, the committeeman wrote, help win over "George Wallace inclined voters."

As requested, Reagan appeared and declared his support to states' rights--which everyone took to be a coded declaration of support for segregationist sentiments. Sounds to me like it was pretty well planned.

"Regan's defenders protest furiously that he wasn't personally bigoted," Krugman writes. "So what? We're talking about his political strategy. His personal beliefs are irrelevant."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am a fellow Democrat and agree with, not all, but some of your posts. I could not help but think of this blog when I was listening to a cable news station this morning when the guest was discussing "defamation and blogs". You strike me as a person who can talk the talk but not walk the walk. One who can dish it out but certainly can't take it (obvious by deleting all posts that do not agree with you). Listening to this guest made me wonder with all the legal research you do, it doesn't appear that you have done your research when it comes to defamation/libel lawsuits. I am wondering what you would be researching if someone creates a blog and post defamatory comments
about you? I am sure with the problems it seems you have with everyone under the sun, there must be some things out there that you would not like posted about yourself. I bet it would not be long before we would be hearing about defamation lawsuits you have reserached. Why dont't you touch on that in a bit?