re: #651 Fenway_Nation

Too fucking slow.

Well, who am I to question the editorial pages of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the National Review? :)

Oops. You left out this part:

Given the history of Philadelphia, and Reagan’s use of the words “states’ rights”, often interpreted as a desire to return to pre-Civil Rights laws regarding segregation, many felt that Reagan was at least insensitive to the concerns of blacks, or that he even was using this location and these words as a cynical appeal to the white racist vote. Columnist Bob Herbert of The New York Times wrote, “Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair”, and that it “was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you”.[3] Paul Krugman, also of the Times, noted that a Republican national committee member from Mississippi had urged Reagan to speak at the county fair, as it would help win over “George Wallace inclined voters”, and wrote that this was just one of many examples of “Reagan’s tacit race-baiting in the historical record”,[4]

Eulogizing on Reagan’s death Washington Post columnist William Raspberry noted of the incident,

“It was bitter symbolism for black Americans (though surely not just for black Americans). Countless observers have noted that Reagan took the Republican Party from virtual irrelevance to the ascendancy it now enjoys. The essence of that transformation, we shouldn’t forget, is the party’s successful wooing of the race-exploiting Southern Democrats formerly known as Dixiecrats. And Reagan’s Philadelphia appearance was an important bouquet in that courtship.”[5]

***
Do you agree that, even if Reagan’s campaign didn’t have a racist bone in its body, scheduling his kickoff address in Philadelphia, Miss., with a symbolic shout-out to George Wallace, was at least a bone-headed thing to do from a public relations standpoint?

If not, I got nothin’, Nels. I’ll have to pack it in, on this one.