WaPo: The GOP is no party for blacks, Latinos, and gays

[bedstuy]

First of all, race may have been a factor in 1964, but it wasn't after that.  And stop making fun of me on the Southern strategy.  Read these articles to prove my point:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/100265457/The-Truth-Nixon-s-Southern-Strategy
http://www.wnd.com/2002/12/16477/

Come on, Pat Buchanan wrote one of those articles...

Pat Buchanan is not really an authority on what is and is not racist.  He's an anti-Semite and he was race-baiting and demonizing blacks into the 1990s.  Plus, he worked for Nixon so he's not exactly a disinterested analyst on that. 

[bedstuy]

Southern white racists did not join the party between 1964 and 1968.  They may have voted for Goldwater in 1964, but after that, they went right back to voting Democrat, as evidenced by George Wallace running in 1968 (albeit as an Independent) and candidates like George Mahoney, Herman Talmadge, and Lester Maddox.  You seem like a smart guy; does being a member of one party and voting for one candidate of the opposing party suddenly make you a member of that person's party? 

Obviously, it's more complicated than one party was racist or the other party was racist.  Basically, the white establishment in the South was historically part of the Democratic party and they were historically racist.  But, they weren't racist because they were Democrats.   

Outside the South during the 50s-70s, the Democrats were more supportive of civil rights than Republicans.  If you take out the South, a higher percentage of Democrats voted for the civil rights act in Congress. Or look at Harry Truman desegregating the military.  Or just look at the black vote during this time.  Democrats won the black vote for President every time by a large margin.

Post 1972, direct appeals to racism and segregation were a net negative for politicians at the national level.  Neither party was going to repeal the civil rights act, segregation was over as a political issue.  Racism still existed though.  Republicans made inroads with white votes in the South during the 70s-90s mainly by playing up morals/family values issues and anti-Communism.  However, some Republicans also used racist appeals and talked about "state's rights."  Not a huge percentage of racist whites changed their registration to Republicans.  But, the gains Republicans made in the South were among the white racist establishment and not blacks, the Wallace voters, not the Humphrey voters. 

[bedstuy]

"State's rights" was not used by Republicans as a code word.  By then, nobody wanted to bring segregation back, so there were clearly no racist appeals in that.  

Reagan kicked off his campaign in 1980 in Mississippi in a town where civil rights workers had been murdered and talked about "state's rights."  Add that to his welfare queen comments and his bizarre reverence for the Waffen SS, and you have a troubling picture of President Reagan on race. 

In three of the five Southern states that Wallace carried in 1968, Humphrey beat Nixon for second.

Maybe the Humphrey voters were the blacks who were allowed to vote.  Humphrey did win 97% of the black vote. 

Blacks had been voting Democrat since the 1930s in response to the New Deal,

But, their support for Democrats increased tremendously after 1964.  In 1960, Nixon won 29% of blacks.  In 68, he won 3%.  A party that's strong on civil rights doesn't see its vote among black folks go down by 90% in an eight year period.

Not all Southern Democrats were racists or segregationists, and though they weren't racist because they were Democrats, they were Democrats because they were racist.

That's illogical on its face.  If Southerners were Democrats because they were racist, then all Southern Democrats would have to be racist. 

even if non-Southern Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act more than Republicans (which isn't even fair when you include Southerners like John Tower with the other Republicans), the majority of the bill's opposition came from Democrats

We have different theories.  My theory is that being an elected official in the Jim Crow South is an indicator of racism.  Your theory is that being a Democrat is an indicator of racism.  If you theory was correct, one would expect a higher percentage of Democrats in the north would oppose the civil rights act.  Yet, much to the contrary, outside the South, being a Democrat made you more likely to support the Civil Rights Act.  What is your explanation for that?