"RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes"

"RNC Chief to Say It Was 'Wrong' to Exploit Racial Conflict for Votes" From the Washington Post:

By Mike Allen
Thursday, July 14, 2005; Page A04

It was called "the southern strategy," started under Richard M. Nixon in 1968, and described Republican efforts to use race as a wedge issue -- on matters such as desegregation and busing -- to appeal to white southern voters.

Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, this morning will tell the NAACP national convention in Milwaukee that it was "wrong."

"By the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out," Mehlman says in his prepared text. "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

Mehlman, a Baltimore native who managed President Bush's reelection campaign, goes on to discuss current overtures to minorities, calling it "not healthy for the country for our political parties to be so racially polarized."

Mehlman went on to add that, as a direct logical consequence of this realization that the hugely successful Southern Strategy was wrong, all white Southern GOP members of both Houses of Congress would resign tomorrow, along with the President, but not before passing a constitutional amendment disenfranchising white Southerners. Mehlman concluded his speech by saying:

"And I, for one, welcome our new Democratic overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted Republican personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves."

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer