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Although the phrase "Southern strategy" is often attributed to liberal political commentator
Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it,
[1] but merely popularized it.
[2] In an interview included in a 1970
New York Times article, he touched on its essence:
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
In addition to presidential campaigns, charges of racism have been made about subsequent Republican campaigns for the
House of Representatives and
Senate in the South. The
Willie Horton commercials used by supporters of
George H. W. Bush against
Michael Dukakis in the
election of 1988 were considered by some, including
Jesse Jackson,
Lloyd Bentsen, and many newspaper editors, to be racist. The 1990 re-election campaign of
Jesse Helms attacked his opponent's alleged support of "racial quotas," most notably through an ad in which a white person's hands are seen crumpling a letter indicating that he was denied a job because of the color of his skin.
Herbert wrote in the same column, "The truth is that there was very little that was subconscious about the G.O.P.'s relentless appeal to racist whites. Tired of losing elections, it saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks."
Southern strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
