Base Strategy
by digby
After it was revealed that Haley Barbour was trying to whitewash Jim Crow there was a lot skepticism when I wrote that he is running for president using a Southern Strategy in both the primary and the Nixon/Reagan sense of the world. But the evidence is mounting:
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), a potential presidential candidate, appears to have marked a line in the sand for an expected presidential run sure to be dogged by the politics of race and the legacy of the Civil Rights Era in his state. Asked by reporters today in Jackson, Mississippi, Barbour not only refused to denounce efforts by some to create a license plate honoring Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. He said he was out of the denouncing business altogether.
“I don’t go around denouncing people,” said Barbour, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports. “That’s not going to happen. I don’t even denounce the news media.”
Barbour also added: “I know there’s not a chance it’ll become law.”
It seems to me that a truly clever candidate could be more subtle than Barbour’s been so far, but I think it’s tough in this crowded field. If you’re going to specifically go for the Southern Republican racist vote, you’ll need to be fairly explicit if you want to stand out.
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