You can't ignore race when the dominant strategy for the Republicans in the South since at least 1972 has been to appeal to the racists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Originally Posted by TexTushHog
OK, then go read Kevin Phillips book
The Emerging Republican Majority. Published in 1970 or so. The strategy is explicitly laid out there. There are a number of first party sources on the issue including most interestingly a series of interviews with Lee Atwater while he was terminally ill. There is also a very revealing book written by Alexander Lamis called
The Two Party South where Atwater is unusually candid about racist "dog whistles" and "coded" appeals to racism in Republican messaging. His quotes there were before his final illness, as I recall.
Here's some of the meat of the last quote from Atwater reprinted in the NYT:
Staff edit, CC
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...53C1A9639C8B63
Linking to it is fine
That's how the Republicans won over middle and lower class male white voters in the South, plain and simple. Look at Reagan. He announced "I believe in State's rights." But where did he say it? Philadelphia, Mississippi. That was no accident. That's where three Freedom riders were murdered. The significance of that sort of symbolism isn't lost on the racists. It's signaling that "I'm one of you. You can count on me."
And after all of that, you expect these rednecks to embrace Herman Cain?
Happier with the sourcing now?