re: #30 Gus

Reagan’s Neshoba County Fair “states’ rights” speech

Actually it was Richard Nixon who had first wooed Southerners in 1968 and 1972. In the latter election he was helped less by racism and more by the left-wing social views of Sen. McGovern, which annoyed social conservatives in the South.

But the “Southern Strategy” had not worked at all in 1976, due in large part to the fact that in the year the Democratic candidate was Jimmy Carter of Georgia. States like South Carolina which had gone massively for Nixon just four years before sided with Carter in 1976, and the viability of the GOP’s efforts in the South were in doubt.

Ronald Reagan dispelled those doubts, winning over Southern voters with a combination of social conservatism, public focus on American exceptionalism, a return to openly anti-Communist policies abroad, a major military build-up, and a greater emphasis on federalism. The problem is that southern states used “States Rights” to extremely bad ends for a long time before Reagan arrived on the scene and sometimes still do so.