Lee Atwater Speaks: The Southern Strategy

According to Wikipedia: "Harvey LeRoy 'Lee' Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist to the Republican Party. He was an advisor to U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and chairman of the Republican National Committee."

Atwater was one of the first ruthless, take-no-prisoners Republican consultants who have done so much to poison political discourse. His "dirty tricks" in Republican political campaigns are legendary. He became a protege to Republican mastermind Ed Rollins, who says Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, including publicizing the fact that Ferraro's parents had been indicted on numbers running in the 1940s. Rollins also described Atwater as "ruthless," "Ollie North in civilian clothes," and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake."

As a prelude to the audio clip that follows, Wikipedia claims the interview began:

"Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

"Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?"

And the Atwater audio follows, with a transcript beneath. In the video, the captioning starts out: "In 1981, the legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater was working in Ronald Reagan's White House when he was interviewed by Alexander Lamis."

The second frame says: "In this audio, made public for the first time ever, Atwater lays out how the Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves."



TRANSCRIPT:

"Here's how I would approach that issue as a -- as a statistician or a political scientist -- or, no, as a psychologist, which I'm not, is -- is how abstract you -- you handle the race thing. In other words, you start out -- and now y'all aren't quoting me on this, are you?

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968, you can’t say 'nigger'; that hurts you. It backfires. So you say stuff like 'forced busing,' 'states’ rights,' and all that stuff. And you’re getting so abstract now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all of these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them 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 -- we're doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me? Because obviously sitting around saying 'We want to cut taxes,' 'We want to cut this,' and 'We want' -- is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'nigger, nigger.' You know.

"So any way you look at it, race is coming on the back burner."

Atwater is believed to have repented of his political sins on his deathbed before succumbing to cancer; others say he was being disingenuous, "spinning to the end."

Interesting guy. May he rest in -- whatever state he deserves.