Can anyone locate Strom's legendary renunciation of his '48 campaign?

I love this:

"Thurmond's refusal to treat segregationism as anything worse than an outdated fashion may have helped convince Lott that he, too, would never have to make a similar accounting for his own (far milder) segregationist past. Conceivably Lott could have dodged that bullet just as easily as Thurmond did. But Lott wasn't smart enough to grasp something Strom understood even in his dotage: If you don't want to apologize for something you did that was truly awful, try not to discuss it at all."

 

Found this bit:

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/editorial/4720376.htm

 

Could it have been a gradual change and would that be enough for you?

I mean, in each election he must have been tested. I remember reading that he never really won in landslides, but I will check it out.

It also could be what you had said before, the silent and hidden race war that still works today has been in play all along.

I would guess that his change from Demo/Dixiecrat to the GOP was a major sign of some kind of public change.

To think, this 100 year old guy is worth our efforts.

 

Good one. People don't change. Especially once they hit middle age, and remember that Strom was almost 50 when he ran from president. Do you honestly believe that after 50 years of being a white supremacist, he suddenly had a change of heart and over the course of the next 50 years became the most tolerant man in the world.

Note how the only reason he left the Democratic Party was because he opposed their Civil Rights platform. If he became OK with it, why didn't he ever go back?

 

Sure they do.

Smart people learn to adapt with the world around them, at least to a certain extent. Say what you will about Strom, but he's not stupid.

No, but then again nobody here said he had become the most tolerant man in the world. But he was the first Southern Senator (I believe) to hire a black man to work in his office, he voted to extend the Voting Rights Act, and he was the first Southern something (governor, senator?) to nominate a black judge.

He might still not like black people. That would be unfortunate, but it's also not terribly relevant given that he has made strides toward adapting to the modern world.

My God man, you've turned me into a Strom Thurmond apologist!

He was a Southern Democrat. Even most Southern Democrats today are conservative compared to the rest of the party. He probably determined that the Republican Party more closely mirrored his conservative views.

Besides, politically, it's hard to walk away from a party then try to return and expect they'll welcome you with open arms.

 

Can anyone locate anything Strom actually did while in the Senate?

 

He's done a lot in the Senate, at least in terms of voting for or against things (though not lately admittedly).

And he lived a long time.

 

Deep down, fiscal conservatives are just fiscal liberals that only want the money for their own causes, if that makes any sense.

I can't remember a conservative on Capital Hill turning down money for one of their pet projects because it wasn't in the budget. How much support would the TVA or farm price supports have had in the South if the money was headed to the Midwest?

 

Or maybe it has to do with Southern voters tending to be more pro-death penalty (last I checked Texas and Virginia were some of the leaders in that category), anti-abortion and pro-military. Culturally they are a better fit than Democrats.

I'm not familiar with the South on a district-by-district breakdown, but I am somewhat familiar with Virginia. There you have an 8-3 split in the congressional delegation for Republicans. As recently as 1996 it was tilted for the Dems. And if you go back and look at the results of the last election, not one Republican was elected with less than 62% of the vote, and the majority were over 80%. Plainly these aren't people who need to appeal to some redneck fringe to put them over the top. Indeed, Virginia elected a Black governor, Douglas Wilder, in the early 1990s. The Confederate flag isn't that big of a deal and isn't part of the state flag.

Republicans do not need to interject race to win campaigns or use codewords in the South. Just look at the 2001 special election in Virginia to replace Norman Sisisky, a Democrat, in a district that is 40% Black. The Republican, Randy Forbes, won not by talking about race, but social security privatization. As Paul Gigot noted, the arguably the only one talking about race was Forbes's Democratic opponent.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pgigot/?id=95000625

An African-American, Ms. Lucas has also taken heat for playing the race card by claiming in campaign mail that "six million minority families" will be "left behind by the Bush/Republican budget." As if income-tax cuts are racist.

I think your theory that Republicans only do so well in the South owing to their subtle use of race needs some re-working.

 

It's very true that the south has many quirky sides which defy pigeonholes. I think that Alabama is the state most favorable to product liability lawsuits. I lived for awhile in an area of east Tennessee that sided with the union in the civil war. They've got snake-handlers and Yankee fans living side-by-side.

Awhile ago, I sat next to a guy on the bus (here in San Francisco), very pierced and tattooed and gay, and he told me about how he'd just come back from living a couple of years in a "queer" commune in Tennessee. Of course, they probably knew enough to stay away from certain types of bars.....

 

So you're saying Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, fourth in line of succession to the Presidency, is a Klansman at heart? Interesting.

 

It isn't interesting, it is how I feel. A politician will eat his own feces to get ahead, let alone pretend he holds beliefs contrary to his actual ones. You don't join the Klan by accident or because you're unsure how you feel.

 

And thus enters the day's most cogent post. Seriously.

 

And thus enters the day's most cogent post. Seriously.

 

I wish I’d been able to post this earlier. Connection problems. Oh well. So here goes:

I wouldn’t paint that with too broad a brush. Those breakdowns exist more along the urban/rural divide than anything else.

As I posted in the other thread—no, you’re not.

I addressed this in the other thread too. The reason for that was re-districting into “safe” districts. Only one election in Virginia was competitive. Without the consolidation of Richmond and Tidewater area blacks, there would have been at least four competitive races. The Republican state legislature sacrificed Richmond and gained the suburbs.

Indeed no. The reason is that the legislative districts have been restructured so that they don’t have to—it’s been predisposed.

1989, actually. Bad, bad, bad, BAD example. Most folks in Virginia believe Wilder set back the black cause in this state by 20 years. Not even black folks support him anymore. His MOTHER wouldn’t vote for him—he became completely irrelevant politically the day he stepped down. Serving as Governor in this State ended his political career—it didn’t launch it. The Republican takeover at the state level dates from his election to the Governorship. Wilder crippled the Democratic party in this State for years to come—why do you think it took a multi-billionaire to break the Republican stranglehold on the Governor’s chair? The Dems stole a page out of the Republican book—find a rich candidate, and let him buy the election.

JeHEEEEEEzus! You really don’t know what you’re talking about, do you? I grew up with the Confederate flag as part of my daily existence, right here in Northern Virginia. It’s not as prevalent as elsewhere, but it’s still just as powerful a symbol. The reason it wasn’t ever a part of our State flag is that our State flag is older than this country—as much as it resonates, the Confederate flag is a johnny-come-lately by comparison.

Tax cuts aren’t racist, the people who pass them are.

No, seriously, this is actually a valid point. However, you’ve used the most irritatingly obnoxious militant black person in the history of Virginia politics to make a point about race relations in the South. For what it’s worth, Ms. Lucas was a radical Marxist as well as a racist. There was widespread acknowledgement that her selection was an indication that the Democrats had given up on that seat, but wanted to defuse racial criticism in their own ranks. In isolation, it looks like this supports your point, but in context, it’s a lot murkier than that.

This is true—the theory does need work. However, your attempts to paint the theory as wholly ridiculous have backfired, as far as I’m concerned. You’ve proved the point rather than discrediting it. Race relations/tensions/politics have become more subtle in Virginia, but they’ve also become more powerful as a result.

There’s an undercurrent in black political discourse these days that suggests that Blacks actually did better as bloc voters in wedge districts—which allowed them to participate in the majority, rather than as concentrated voters who give them a representative that looks like them but is in effect, powerless as a marginal member of the minority party.

Meanwhile, Republicans can sit back in their safe majority and point at the few majority minority districts they’ve created and say “What do you mean racist? We guaranteed you representation”. Sure. Representation as a member of the permanent minority party. Meanwhile, in a district that’s 85+% white, the Republican Congressman doesn’t have to soil himself by dealing with minorities, since they’re completely irrelevant to his reelection campaign.

Subtle, but more powerful.

 

Of course that would make Hillary a Republican since she was a Young Republican in college. Interesting.

 

And the South is significantly rural, therefore the connection holds.

Er, having gone to both high school and college in the Old Dominion, I think I am.

And statewide the GOP has both senators and had the governorship for 8 years until Mark Warner came along campaigning as a conservative Democrat.

OK you agree with me here.

Not a bad example at all, I never said Wilder was a good governor. My only point was that Virginians were willing to elect a Black governor. The point still stands.

Again, I do know what I'm talking about. While the Confederate flag still holds a considerable allure for many people, it isn't a political issue. GOP candidates have not won by running around waving the Confederate flag.

Fine, look at the attempt to link Bush to the dragging death of a Black man in Texas in the presidential election. I also don't believe for a second that the Dems readily gave up on a seat that was previously occupied by a Democrat and was 40% Black, the Democratic party simply isn't in any sort of position to throw in the towel on districts like that. I personally know people who work for liberal special interest groups who went down to work on that campaign.

So basically you admit that you have little evidence, since Blacks have essentially been removed from the equation and aren't an issue, and for that you blame the GOP -- ignoring that the concept of minority-majority districts was backed by the Congressional Black Caucus.

 

But not for the reason you posted. It's a subtle, but important distinction.

Obviously YOU think so. You're wrong however. And for me, it's 25 years and counting--a little more intimate experience, I'd say.

Right. That's directly attributable to Wilder's ineptitude as Governor. Or are you deliberately ignoring what I write?

It falls. The point is valid, except it ignores the question. The question is not "Did Virginia voters elect a black Governor?" They did. The question is: "Would they do it again?" I think the answer, based on the voting patterns in the State over the last ten years is pretty clearly no.

They don't make a big issue of taking them down either, Colin. Ever been down near Blacksburg? They're pretty prevalent.

Why didn't the Democrats select a candidate that could win then?

The majority-minority districts that the CBC backed didn't have the effect of reducing their membership. Wider context, Colin. It's important. They were looking for 2-3 Districts with 35-50% minority population, not one with 40% and one with 80%. You do understand the notion of dilution through concentration, don't you?

It's subtle, but more powerful.

No, I do not have a smoking gun memo from the Virginia GOP Committee that says: "Let's screw the blacks". But even if I did, it wouldn't matter to you.

For what it's worth, I'd tend to agree that the Democratic party is only slightly better on this issue. It's a problem when you only have two monolithic parties that are trying the big tent approach.

 

Says you, I disagree.

OK.

You're right in your first post, people wouldn't vote for him because he is inept, not because he is Black.

Sure have. Whether people fly the flag or not is irrelevant, the point is that it isn't a political issue. The flag does not fly above the statehouse. I also don't think you can automatically equate the flag with racial hatred. Surely as a 25 year veteran of VA you have seen the "Heritage not hate" bumperstickers on the back of a pick-up truck.

It was a very close race, there is no reason the Democrat couldn't have won.

Yes, imagine that, Republicans are trying to take Democratic voters and pack them into one district. Holy smokes, who ever heard of that before???

Hey, if you want to see racism in that, you'll see racism. To me it just looks like politics.

 

Forget it, Colin. I give up. You're right. There's no racism in Virginia. Trent Lott is misunderstood. It's a good thing that our political discourse is about as deep as a raindrop.

 

The exchange between Colin and Daniel raises a question, to me. In the 30s and 40s, the South's representatives in Congress were NOT overly conservative on economic issues. I don't know enough to get it down to the nth degree, so I won't go any further than that. Yeah, FDR tried to purge conservative southern Dems in '38, but that wasn't everyone. If you look at the delegations as a whole, those that FDR tried to purge are like Reeps in the rest of the nation.

Since then, the South has added millions and millions of black voters, who are substantially left of the nation on economic issues. It ought to follow that the South is economically left of the nation, but that's obviously not the case.

It raises a chicken-and-egg question...did Southern whites move to the Republican party in part because of economic conservatism, or did Southern whites adopt economic conservatism, in part, as a reaction to black enfrachisement? Something very dramatic changed in Southern whites' economic views in the 50s and 60s. It begs for an explanation.