There's been a heated back-and-forth among a three New York Times columnists over whether Ronald Reagan was appealing to Southern white bigots when he opened his 1980 Presidential campaign at the Neshoba County, Mississippi Fair, not far from the site of the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. Neocon putz David Brooks wrote in his column the other day that we should accept a benign explanation ("innocent mistake") of Reagan's statement at the Fair that "I believe in State's rights", a code phrase for segregation. Bob Herbert takes the argument apart in his subsequent rebuttal, as did Paul Krugman a couple of days ago. The "Southern Strategy" has been a fixture in Rethug politics since the 1960s, and was intended to appeal to the white racist vote. Ever since, the Deep South has been reliably Rethug in Presidential elections.
(photo: Reagan for President rally)
