<<< Murdered Civil Rights Workers in 1964
Long before Senators Barack Obama and John McCain became the leaders of their parties, a partisan shift was under way at the local and state level. Three years ago, there began a reduction in the number of voters who register as Republicans and a major rise among Democratic voters as well as those Independents with no party at all.
Increased voter registrations today have added tens of thousands of new Democratic and Independent voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of the Republicans in both states. The analysis data by The New York Times shows that in the Democratic areas of Ohio, new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000.
In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida. The pace of new Democratic registrations is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas. Similar registration drives have been mounted in other swing and southern states as well, and Democratic party officials say record numbers of new voters are being registered nationwide.
While all of the implications of the changing political landscape, (especially in the South), are far from clear, voting experts say the registration numbers may signal the beginning of a move away from the Republicans that could affect local, state and national politics over several election cycles. Since 2006, there has already been a sharp reversal for Republicans in many statehouses and governors’ mansions.
Today, some older voter experts, were also around back when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This is the action that started the migration of the southern states from being "Blue" states to "Red" states. These individuals have suggested that this change in the political atmosphere might be the first outward signs that Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" may finally be on its way out.
For those of you that don't know about, or were to young to know what the "Southern Strategy" was and how it has effected American politics, here is a little history lesson.
Nixon's Southern Strategy
The term "Southern strategy" is often attributed to Richard Nixon's, long-time political strategist, Kevin Phillips. In an interview in a 1970 New York Times article, Phillips touched on the essence of the "Southern Strategy":
"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 "Negrophobic" whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks [registering as Democrats], the southern whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."
In the late 1960's, Phillips was concerned with winning the white South and this was by far the biggest prize eventually yielded by his "Southern Strategy" approach. The "Strategy's" success began at the presidential election level, gradually trickling down over the years to southern statewide office elections. Senate and House "segregationist southern Democrats" eventually either retired (to be replaced by Republicans) or they literally "switched" to the GOP.
The "Southern Strategy" suffered a bit of a reversal following Nixon's Watergate Scandal and with short-term, broad support for the Southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election.
However, Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 Republican presidential campaign proclaiming a strong support for "states' rights" in the southern town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. This was the site of the horrific murders of three northern civil rights workers that were visiting in 1964 during the civil rights marches of the 64 Freedom Summer. It appeared clear at that time, that the Republican Party was going to build on Nixon's "Southern Strategy" once again.
Although another Southern Democrat Bill Clinton was twice elected President, winning a handful of Southern states in 1992 and 1996, he won far more votes outside of the South and could still have won the elections handily without carrying any other Southern state.
From 1948 to 1984, the Southern states were traditionally a stronghold for both black and white Democrats and they had been the key "swing-vote" states. The "Democratic South" had previously provided the critical Democratic vote margins needed in the 1960, 1968 and 1976 elections.
However, during this era, even though the GOP had lost elections several Republican candidates continually expressed their strong support for "states' rights". "States' rights support" was the signal of the southern Republican's opposition to federal enforcement of any civil rights laws for any blacks. This included supporting the passage of any local or regional legislation that would protect the "Southern Strategy" franchise. This drum beating for "states' rights" and opposition to the "feds" by the southern Republicans eventually turned many southern states from Democratic "Blue" to Republican "Red".
It is now appearing that after the devastating results of the Bush Administration's "non-support" of the southern states during the Katrina and Rita hurricanes, and other southern areas of being ignored by the Republicans, the hold on the "South" by the GOP may be seriously slipping.
As time has passed and the new generations of both whites and blacks have now become the new southern voters, the term "Southern Strategy" is fortunately being used in a more general sense. Today, it is usually used in referring to cultural themes in an election, but is not exclusively used just in the American South. In the past, Southern Strategy issues such as "school busing", or "states' rights" appealed to the southern white's concerns which were solely about integration. Today, the term appeals more to Republican conservative values and cultural issues such as: gay marriage, abortion, and religion.
Let's just hope that Nixon's "Southern Strategy" era is finally coming to an end.
0 comments:
Post a Comment