Gingrich and Racist-Code Language

Read Charles Blow's column on this in today's NYTimes.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/newt-gingrich-and-the-art-of-racial-politics/?src=recg

Those who may be skeptical that Gingrich is resorting to "dog whistle" politics in his particular choice of words might want to consider the following:

1.  South Carolina was the final state in the country to recognize MLK, Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday.

2.  The modern Republican party's strength in the South began in the 1964 Johnson vs. Goldwater presidential election in which, for the first time since Reconstruction, five former confederacy states voted for the Republican nominee.  Goldwater opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the most important civil rights legislation in our modern history.  Nixon's "Southern Strategy," in 1968, was intended to capitalize on the switch in the Electoral College away from the solid (Democratic, pro-segregationist) South.  White voters -- so-called "white ethnics" (Polish-American, Scotch American, and Irish-Americans) -- residing in the South from DC through the old confederacy began to associate the Democratic Party with African Americans, suffering from what Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips called "negrophobia."

3.  Ronald Reagan began his 1980 campaign for President in Philadelphia, MS (not PA).  Campaigning on "states' rights" against federal encroachment, the Reagan campaign knew full well that this was the sight that, in 1968, where three white "freedom riders" were killed in their efforts to desegregate the South.  This acclerated the racial realignment -- and hence regional realignment, too -- of the two parties:  Until Obama's victory in the states of Virginia and North Carolina in 2008, no northern Democratic presidential candidate could break the GOP electoral hold on the South.  The exceptions, of course, consist of the two governors of Southern states, Carter and Clinton).  Before Obama, nominating a non-southern was tantamount to giving the Republicans a significant head-start in the Electoral College.  American national elections still follow these regional patterns.

4.  The Party votes by race in 2008 in South Carolina tell the tale.  Three-quarters of white voters voted for McCain in the general election; two percent of black voters cast ballots for the Republican nominee.

5.  In SC today, a white woman thanked Gingrich for putting Juan Williams in his place on Monday night, saying that the so-called question of Gingrich's use of racialized language was not a question at all but an assertion of insidious motivation that was baseless.  "Putting a questioner in his place" is an odd way to characterize behavior that is entirely innocent of racial overtones.

Anyone who would like to pursue this matter at greater length would be well-advised to run down Joel Olson's article in the Journal of Political Research examining "whiteness" as a root of American partisan polarization.  It's not a pretty story, but it's first-rate political science in my opinion.  I doubt, however, that Professor Ricci would concur with my assessment.