So will the GOP Rethink the Southern Strategy?

[rareboy]

As everyone here would know, the Southern Strategy, developed during the Goldwater/Nixon era was the tide that lifted the foundering Republican boat. As early as 1970, Kevin Phillips, the man who refined and exploited this approach, noted:

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 Voting Rights Act. 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.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html...s-southern.pdf

It was like a gift from God....and delivered the GOP the electoral college votes they required.

The mealy mouthed Ken Mehlman, pandering to the NAACP in 2005, delivered an empty 'apology':

"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 as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

Little to nothing came of it though; like the war on gays, the GOP persistently stuck with the notion through 2008, even the cracks were beginning to show.


Now the party of old white men and screaming fundamentalist harpies is at a crossroads. Will they try to revive the glory days when every trailer dweller with a confederate flag could be counted on to register their protest against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.......or will they risk the loss of some of their white support in the south by actually figuring out a way to appeal to non-white voters.

Or is it too late....as it seemed to be even by the time Mehlman at least let that dirty little secret out of the bag?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Mehlman

[T-Rexx]

Republicans cannot "rethink" the southern strategy.

The components of the "southern strategy" are intricately woven into the structure that is the modern GOP. It is not possible for them to abandon racism or homophobia or religious intolerance. Those are the ideals on which the structure of the party now rests. Abandoning such concepts would completely destroy the Republican Party.

If America becomes more hateful and racist and homophobic, the Republican Party will thrive. If America becomes more tolerant and accepting and egalitarian, the Republican Party will die. That is why the GOP has worked so hard in recent years to spread racism and homophobia and religious intolerance. Without that, they have no future.

[palbert]

I think Southerners and a great many Mid-westerners are more wed to the GOP than the GOP is to them. Just look at the sea of red for underpopulated states. Those people have no choice but to follow non-Democrats. Forming a viable third party -- given the resources a national election requires -- is nigh impossible. The GOP may change but for a long while it will continue to hold sway over the red states: any change will be marginal, not fundamental. Turning the psyche of the red states around is a long educational process -- which both parties best begin.

[BostonPirate]

The southern strategy is no longer effective in the Electoral college for the presidency... The senate races are showing that it's not working there.

But the House of reps is the place where it will live and thrive.

[GiancarloC]

I don't know. I think it'll be incredibly difficult for them to try to take states that are solidly democrat, or even leaning democrat and forgetting their core states. The GOP has many problems... including in Virginia (which is a Southern State) where they lost and North Carolina (which is shifting itself). They are stuck between a rock and hard place right now, and are heavily demoralized.

[T-Rexx]

In coming years, the changing demographics of the south will likely make Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia Democratic strongholds.

Then, the "southern strategy" will be dead and buried.

[GiancarloC]

In coming years, the changing demographics of the south will likely make Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia Democratic strongholds.

Then, the "southern strategy" will be dead and buried.

If they lose Texas... they will be really screwed...

[T-Rexx]

^Yes, exactly.

But, Texas is becoming steadily more urban, industrialized, educated, and Hispanic. It's going to go blue. It's just a question of when.

[maxpowr9]

In coming years, the changing demographics of the south will likely make Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia Democratic strongholds.

Then, the "southern strategy" will be dead and buried.

I would add Georgia into that too. Georgia has been trending slightly more democratic each year with Atlanta leading the way.

[JayHawk]

A good fortune teller of the way America is going is California... the old saying as California goes so does the nation... well the following article breaks down how the two party system has collapsed in Cali...

California GOP Showing Worries Party Strategists

it is a damn good read. I will say again that the right wing party would look like Obama and his leadership IF they hadn't been hijacked by racist and theo-crats.

[GiancarloC]

I was about to post that, JH. Republican party membership has dwindled in this state severely... I think it is as low as 25%. Republicans are on the verge of losing Orange County too... perhaps in the next election they will. Imperial County flipped, and it was previously republican. That article mentioned Pete Wilson... when many of our financial problems started with. Democrats were left to clean up decades of republican mismanagement.

Our state needs a super majority. Republicans only provided gridlock in any way they can in this state. The California republicans didn't care if the state suffered because of their "block at all costs" crap. The days of Bob Dornan and Pete Wilson are long gone.

Speaking of Bob Dornan... the republican party seems to have taken that same reactionary path. It'll be their own downfall. The political situation in California is a foreshadowing of the US. The republican party will increasingly become irrelevant and fade into the background. They might as well rename themselves the "Whig Party" and salvage whatever they have left.