Waving the bloody race flag

If Michael Steele or Ken Blackwell become RNC chairman?

I mean, you would think a Nobel Prize winner could do better than to quote a guy out of context who's been dead for almost two decades and claim it represents contemporary opinions 

Suggestion to Paul. If you are as bright as you say you are-- give Pinch a call and try and save your paper and your job,

Same as the Old Meme: it ignores History.

As usual, liberals ignore their complicity in driving Southern White Voters into the Nixon Camp by engineering the greatest foreign and military catastrophe in American History: the Vietnam War.

You'll notice that the Vietnam War has drifted down the memory hole of liberalism? The notion that John F. Kennedy's assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem and Madam Nhu, and Lyndon Johnson's catastrophic policy of gradualism had anything to do with our defeat there is studiously ignored by liberals. Southern White Voters flocked to George Wallace and Curtis LeMay in 1968, who vowed to win the war by means of atomic bombing if necessary.

Southern White Voters aren't  as stupid or as racist as liberals think they are. The South has been the most progressive part of the nation in the transition away from Jim Crow. It's hard for liberals to get this, but it's true. These same voters watched Democrats try to blame Nixon for the war that Kennedy and Johnson started, and lost. It didn't work. Southern Whites flocked to Nixon in record numbers. 

But you know something? They didn't stay with him. If the Southern Strategy was so devious, why didn't it work in 1976? Lots of Southern Whites ditched Jerry Ford for Jimmy Carter because they wanted to give the Republican Party the heave ho. 

Here's the meat of Krugman's arguement. He says that Southern White voters vote Republican because of race. That ignores the fecklessness, inflation, unemployment, and appeasement, of the Democratic regime of the Carter years. In each case, I would argue that Southern voters turned on one of their own because of the incompetence of the Democrats, inflation, and fear of Soviet Power. Not race. Reagan offered leadership, Carter offered excuses. 

I'm not saying race wasn't a factor, but it was dwarfed by economic and national security concerns. And that's how it remains. 

The Vietnam War, and the Democratic Party's bad stewardship of that war, was the cause of the great divorce with the South. Indeed, I would argue that Democratic gains in the South are temporary, and with a good Republican candidate and a ground game to match the Dems, we'll come back to take the South back. 

It's the rest of the country we have to do better in. This was just an enormously bad year for Republicans. 

This blog is dedicated to the re-birth of conservative principles. If it is to succeed in this mission, it has to confront its past, destroy its myths, and expunge what ever rot is hiding in its core. It has to examine its history, and if necessary, set fire to its martyrs and saints.Jon Henke falls into the common Center Right trap. He links to one of his previous posts that condemns racism, and then attacks Paul Krugman for linking the conservative dictum of small government to its obvious racist implications.This has been a long standing theme of Professor Krugman, and he has addressed it previously, pointing to the great saint of modern conservatism, Ronal Reagan. Every single Republican Presidential Candidate, from Reagan on, through Bush I, Bush II, and McCain have played the race card. And then, why then, they say the others are doing it also…When you begin to consider that racism is not defined by the speaker, but by the listener, you will be half way there… When you realize that not all poor are of color, you may be ready to cross the great divide. But, that will take a leap your leadership, and its many of their followers are not willing to take. It means knocking on voter’s doors and saying: “We are the government, and we are here to help. Ronald Reagan was wrong…”A long time ago my pappy told me that criticism implies that the recipient has an open mind. That modest thought might get brother Henke to examine Professor Krugman’s thoughts, rather than devote energy to ad hominem attacks. 

The Republicans can have an admnistraiton full of quota appointments, the Republicans can oppose things like the Michigan Civil Rights Initaitive, the Republicans can support affirmative action, quotas, 8a contracting, and minority set asides; the Republicans can support busing, school based social engineering, and diversity training, the Repulblicans can conduct outreach to blacks and Hispanics instead of appealling to middle class whites and in the end, the elites of this country will still call you a racism an every avaialable chance.

You would think that the Repubicans would eventually learn that if you care going to be called a racist no matter what, the least they could go is put an end to affirmative action, minority set asides, and race based social engineering. Yet, the Karl roves of the world keep believing it is more important to pander to illegal aliens and blacks while spitting in the faces of conservatives by running up a $5 trillion dollar debt and expanding the government.