>There are all sorts of connotations to the "Southern strategy" meme that you might be entirely unaware of if all you have to go on is hearsay about it.

I go on what Lee Atwater said about it. He managed nearly 30 elections for the Republican Party in the American South, so I don't think his comments count as hearsay.

>Lee Atwater: So the Southern strategy now, basically, and here's another thing, so we haven't talked about this. It's who controls elections in the South. State-wide elections in the South are controlled by, I'm going to use the term George Wallace voters. Because statistically Blacks went for John F. Kennedy en masse, they went for Johnson en masse, they went for Humphrey en masse, they went for Carter en masse, and McGovern en masse.

>I'll say the country club lines went for the Republican every time.

>So, the blue collar voter in 1964 goes for Goldwater, he carries big percentage—remember the other two votes stay the same. 1968 the blue collar voter goes for George Wallace and carries the same voters on. 1972 he goes for Nixon. 1976 he goes for Carter, and we're leading up to my own strategy in the Deep South in 1980. The whole focus group in the South is that blue collar voter. Now that's important when we talk about the race relations thing, because he's also the guy that's most threatened by the Blacks and he's also prone to be “a racist”.

>Until 1980, and a little bit until 76, the race issue was how you approach that man. Plus, the most conservative guy on fiscal matters always tends to have their vote, and the toughest son of a bitch in national defense and foreign policy are always going to have their vote.

>So what happened is Jimmy Carter in 76 was able... plus these people’s regional pride is always biggest in the lower intellects and lower income groups. So on the basis of regional pride, present issues… Being a born-again Christian, which smacks of conservatism, he gets that group en masse in 76, and carries them all the same.

>Once he got there, and this is an important point, it was his to lose. It wasn't ours to win, it was Carter's to lose. All Carter had to do was run in place. Well he didn't do that. He took that to Iran. He went out. He didn't stay on the issue. And we had to go back in and try to make them understand, and I thought we could really lay in and hamstring and bring him back.

>But what he did is default his own home turf. And not only anything to do with racism, or the race question, but on economics and national defense it was his to lose. So the fact of the matter is, the South is Reagan's to lose now. And if Reagan goes and denounces his own economic policy or doesn't balance the budget or, you know, he could lose the South. But if not, he's going to win the South.

>Alexander Lamis: But he's not going to lose the South if he goes along with what the Blacks want from him.

>Lee Atwater: That should be a first of his. Now in 1968, the whole Southern strategy that Harry had put together, the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. And now they don't have to do that.All you gotta do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues his campaigned on since 1964. And that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cutting taxes, you know that old cluster of being tough with national defense. And it's going to be very hard for Reagan to lose.

>Alexander Lamis: Whether he, I'm not saying that he does this consciously, but the fact is that he does get the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by doing away, by cutting down on food stamps.

>Lee Atwater: Here's how I would approach that issue as a statistician or a political scientist. Or as a psychologist, which I'm not, is how abstract you handle the race thing. Now once you start out, and now you don't quote me on this, you start out in 1954 by saying 'nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger,' that hurts you, backfires, so you say stuff like ‘forced bussing, states rights’ and all that stuff, and you're getting so abstract. Now you're talking about cutting taxes and all these things. What you’re talking about are totally economic things, and the byproduct often is Blacks get hurt worse than whites.

>And subconsciously maybe that is part of it, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, that we're doing away with the racial problem one way or the other.

>Do you follow me?

>Because obviously sitting around saying, 'we want to cut taxes, we want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the bussing thing, and a hell of lot more abstract than, 'nigger, nigger.'