Topic: Blog Tours
Reagan's frontal attack on big government, social programs and civil rights further insured Republican wins in national elections and tightened the Republican Party's cast iron-grip on the South. Bush in 2000 and again in 2004 benefited mightily from Reagan's Southern and forgotten man strategy. In both presidential elections, he hauled in the electoral votes of the Old Confederate states, and the Border States with the exception of Maryland and its disproportionate number of black voters, and secured the granite like backing of America's heartland.
Civil rights, civil liberties, women's groups, and liberal Democrats still regard the Reagan years as the most disastrous in modern times for civil rights and social programs and that didn't change even as the nation lionized Reagan after his death in June 2004. GOP conservatives revel in the era and aura of their beloved icon. They should. His Southern Strategy, forgotten man pitch, and happy style of politics, put Republican presidents squarely in the national driver's seat.
John McCain's stay the course talk on Iraq, terrorism, taxes and curbing federal spending were pages straight from Reagan's playbook aimed at shoring up any wavering GOP backing in the white South. They invoked Reagan's patented God, country, and patriotic themes in debates through 2007. The Reagan imitators hoped that Reagan's legacy will do the same for them.
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