I am ashamed I do not remember this "Southern Strategy". It sickens me.

[madfloridian]

I was old enough to be paying attention. I don't know why I was not. What a horrible thing Nixon and Agnew did at the Gridiron Club one year (does not say what year), and I don't remember knowing it. Am I the only one who did not know this? I say good for Howard Dean for bringing this out. People like me who were drifting along then and not paying attention need an awakening. I am glad he has the courage to bring it up....so people like me might do an internet search on it.

From a book called Nixon's Piano, Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton: July/August 1995 archives of Columbia School of Journalism.

http://archives.cjr.org/year/96/4/books-nixon.asp

SNIP..."Absolutely determined that a good time would be had by all, and equally determined to bring down the house, Richard Nixon appeared as the final act at the Gridiron Club's annual spring dinner. The curtain pulled back to reveal the president and Vice President Spiro Agnew seated at two modest black pianos (Dwight Chapin at the White House had requested grand pianos or at least baby grands but the Statler Hilton could only manage uprights). This was the first time a chief executive had appeared on the Gridiron stage, and Nixon opened by asking:"What about this 'southern strategy ' we hear so often?" "Yes suh, Mr. President," Agnew replied, "Ah agree with you completely on yoah southern strategy." The dialect, as Roger Wilkins observed, got the biggest boffo.

After more banter with the "darky" Agnew, Nixon opened the piano duet with Franklin Roosevelt's favorite song ("Home on the Range"), then Harry Truman's ("Missouri Waltz"), then Lyndon Johnson's ("The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You"). Agnew drowned him out a few bars into each with a manic "Dixie" on his piano, and the Gridiron crew got louder and louder. "The crowd ate it up," Wilkins observed. "They roared." Nixon ended with his own favorite songs, "God Bless America" and "Auld Lang Syne," and here Agnew played it straight. The Gridiron dinner faded with five hundred men suddenly solemn and on their feet, many with tears in their eyes, all singing along, all celebrating their nation....."

And right now I have tears....but not from pride. Not from celebrating.

[NJCher]

1. yep, that's our "heritage"

appalling and disgusting don't even begin to describe it.


Cher

[madfloridian]

2. Was it commonly known that Nixon and Agnew did that?

I am sorry, I don't mean to sound dumb about this. I find it horrible. I just did not how ugly they were. I knew I did not like them.

[roguevalley]

3. Nixon hated everyone.

He hated Jews too. He had a memorable conversation with BIlly Graham, who assured Nixon that he could count on his support because 'those
people' really liked him and hung with him.

WHat a nauseating group for a nauseating time.

[bobbieinok]

4. In 1960 Nixon developed what has since been labeled

'Nixon's southern strategy'.

In the spring of 1960 the anti-segregation 'sit-ins' started in Greensboro NC and quickly spread across the south.

MLK was arrested (in Atlanta, I think) for taking part in one. His wife was worried and pregnant.

In Taylor Branch's first volume on the King years, he claims that JFK wasn't paying attn to this; but some on his staff knew how important this could be for the campaign. They persuaded JFK to call her and offer his sympathy and help.

Nixon and his staff did not call. They saw a chance to gain the votes of southern whites opposed to civil rights - and during the campaign they downplayed Eisenhower's attempts to get a civil rights bill passed.

(These were the bills that the southern senators - mostly democrats - fillibustered to death. It was in one of these anti-civil rights fillibusters that Strom Thurmond set the record for the longest fillibuster speech....over 24 hours.)

JFK's call to Mrs. King spread throughout the black community. In 1960, blacks started voting democratic rather than for the party of Lincoln.

As a southern baptist at the time, I'm sure Nixon knew that many protestants in the south were afraid of a Roman Catholic president. You heard over and over that JFK's allegiance would be to the Pope and the Vatican rather than to the US.

With the south's fear of a Catholic president and of black demands, Nixon thought the republicans had it made.

It took another 20 years, but finally Reagan won with the 'southern strategy.'

[madfloridian]

9. I was Southern Baptist then, and I remember that.

I remember the fear being instilled of a Catholic president. I remember wondering why? I did not have a clue how it all fit together.

My God, I was sheltered or naive, or something.

[bobbieinok]

12. I was a senior in college in Houston in the fall of 1960

I certainly knew about the fear of a Catholic as president.

JFK spoke with the Houston Baptist Ministerial Association; an hour of this was nationally televised. (Wouldn't it be great to get a copy of this?)

I also remember hearing about JFK's phone call and that Nixon did not call.

I only in the last 10-15 years put together Nixon's not calling Mrs. King with the southern protestants fear of a Catholic president.

[madfloridian]

14. Strange how it all was bits and pieces.....now I see a pattern.

Did Nixon actually instill this fear? How evil. I just remember my parents, my father an SBC deacon, not seeing anything wrong with it. But then my parents always taught us to think outside the box.

[Code_Name_D]

18. Nixion did not install this fear, he exploted it, fed it...

and drew nurisment from it. That is evil in its truest form, if ever I heard it.

[JVS]

15. Nixon wasn't southern baptist

he was raised a Quaker and later stopped practicing

[bobbieinok]

16. Never claimed he was

Nixon was a pretty smart politician.

He undoubtedly knew about the southern baptist and southern protestant fear of a Catholic president.

And he surely figured out that the combination of this and southern whites' fears of black demands might be a way to crack open the 'solid south.'

[dd123]

5. I didn't know what the heck this southern strategy deal was

until I heard Howard Dean. I'm too young to remember Nixon so I very much appreciate this discussion, especially since the Repubs are still playing this sicko card.

BH (before Howard), I also didn't understand what "code words" were. But thanks to the confederate flag flap, several southerners explained what the whole "welfare queen" thing is about and it has been very enlightening.

I simply don't understand why the Democrats have let this fester for so long. I also hope that exposing these despicable tactics will help to disinfect politics in the future.

Thank goodness for Howard Dean.

[madfloridian]

17. Dean did a favor bringing this up.

He takes a big chance doing it. But it might just work out for him. And for all of us. His statement about people in the south voting against their best interests is important, too.

Our neighbor was griping about his retirement losses. I said how will you vote next time considering everything. He said he had always been a Republican.

I said then don't gripe if your investments keep going sour. I got a little huffy.

[KoKo]

6. Nixon always had a "chip on his shoulder." He made fun of everyone

because he was mean spirited and racist and couldn't get over what "he" viewed as his "lowly birth" and mistreatment by his party. Once he was President, it went to his head. He appointed the kind of thugs that Chimpy has, to cover his weakness. His brain was quicker than Chimp and he was of a more "polite era" but he's a good view as to "Repuglicans Gone Bad." Not many were really good....but he set the tone which followed through until today. This is my humble opinion of him. (which is sort of rabid :D)

[zeemike]

7. There is a lot the repugs would just as soon forget

And it was racism that drove the solid south into the camp of the repugs although they would rather pretend that those people suddenly changed their mind and accepted integration.
The truth is that they just hid it in the closet and kept the talk among themselves.

[madfloridian]

8. OMG this article connects Jeb to this "strategy" and the 2000 election.

While we may have realized what Jeb and Katherine pulled off in 2000, I did not even see a connection. It is going on big time.

http://www.safero.org/columns/unwrapped34.html

SNIP..."Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the brother of President-appoint George W. Bush, has pledged an investigation into alleged irregularities in the recent Presidential elections in Florida, including charges that systematic efforts were made to keep African-American voters from the polls of that state. This is like one of the Jesse James gang offering to look into problems with bank security systems, using some of the proceeds from their bank robberies to fund the research.

SNIP..."Among other serious charges, there is evidence that Florida police set up police check roadblocks in black communities on election day, that many black voters were illegally purged from the voting rolls by a Republican-financed consultant firm, and that voting machines malfunctioned at higher rates in black precincts than elsewhere.

These allegations of vote-stealing have a familiar ring.
MORE:
SNIP..."In the first election I witnessed in South Carolina (it was 1970, I believe), a voting machine broke down in one of the largest black precincts in Charleston. It was in the middle of the morning rush. There were no replacement machines available, and while a repairman worked on the problem for a couple of hours, several hundred African-Americans eventually left the precinct without getting the chance to vote. I became righteously indignant, as I often was in those days, but my Charleston friends were philosophical. It happens every election, they told me. And so it did. Never the same precinct. Never the same time of day. Never the same problem with the machine. But for many elections afterward, somewhere in Charleston on election day, a voting machine in a black precinct would break down for an hour or two. Once is an accident. Twice is incredibly bad luck. Three times or more is a plan...."

I never thought in "connections" on this subject, I never realized how bad Nixon was. I even ran across one article that said Carter was involved in this "strategy." Where the hell have I been?

[bobbieinok]

10. Carter????? No way!!!!!!!!

I heard - or maybe read - during the 76 campaign that

.....Carter and his family were members of a southern baptist church in Plains GA.

.....And one Sunday a black man came down to the front during the altar call and wanted to join the church.

.....There were some in the congregation who did not want black members.

.....The congregation split over the issue, and the Carters went with the group that welcomed black members.

[madfloridian]

11. I did not think so. I will see if I can find the article.

I understand what he did. We left our Southern Baptist Church last year.

[madfloridian]

13. Here is the article, I don't know the site at all.

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/tobacco.htm

SNIP..."The political success of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter's ``Southern Strategy,'' transforming the White House and Congress into bastions of white Southern power, would have been impossible, without the economic transformation of the United States from the greatest industrial and scientific nation-state in history, to a post-industrial nation of white-collar accountants, real estate brokers, computer programmers, retail clerks, and hamburger-flippers. This transformation of America, over the past 30-plus years, has been characterized by the collapse of the urban industrial and cultural centers of the North--New York, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, etc.--and the gradual emergence of the ``New South'' as the heartland of America's post-industrial economy....."

Sounds like they are not referring to the same policy at all, but it had to be. The Carter I remember would not have been that way.