Paul Krugman on Race and Politics

Over the last two weeks, the New York Times has dropped its requirement that Internet readers pay to read certain articles and columns appearing in the NYT. This means that we can now link to articles like this one that appeared on Monday, September 21, 2007 on the Times website and in the print version of the Times. What Krugman does in this article is acknowledge that the political success of the Republican Party in national elections since 1968 has depended on getting Southern whites to vote Republican. The following quotes are from the article:

Consider voting in last year’s Congressional elections. Republicans, as President Bush conceded, received a “thumping,” with almost every major demographic group turning against them. The one big exception was Southern whites, 62 percent of whom voted Republican in House races.(emphasis added)

And yes, Southern white exceptionalism is about race, much more than it is about moral values, religion, support for the military or other explanations sometimes offered. There’s a large statistical literature on the subject, whose conclusion is summed up by the political scientist Thomas F. Schaller in his book “Whistling Past Dixie”: “Despite the best efforts of Republican spinmeisters to depict American conservatism as a nonracial phenomenon, the partisan impact of racial attitudes in the South is stronger today than in the past.”

Appealing to white Southerners is why Republicans candidates aren't appearing at black forums. Its why George W. Bush campaigned at Bob Jones University. It's why Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign by appearing at Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered and gave a speech praising "state rights", code words for white racism. When Republicans told you that impeaching Bill Clinton wasn't about sex, you just knew it was about sex, and when they tell you that appealing to white Southerners isn't about race, you just know it is about race.