Jan Brewer’s 'Southern Strategy': dealing the GOP's favorite race card?

[pinboy3niner]

(XPost from GD)

Source: TucsonSentinel.com


Columnist Jimmy Zuma has an interesting--and credible--take on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's political strategy:

Jan Brewer’s 'Southern Strategy'
Did Gov. Brewer find a new way to deal the GOP's favorite race card?

Posted Jun 14, 2010, 3:29 pm
Jimmy Zuma
TucsonSentinel.com


<snip>
For the past couple of months in Washington’s press corps, a media narrative has emerged about immigration, something to the tune of "everybody agrees that 'Washington hasn’t done its job.'"

Republicans like the narrative because it casts Democrats as failing. Immigration-reform advocates like the narrative because they believe it gives momentum to real immigration reform. Border fence advocates like Senator John McCain like it because, I believe, they are completely disingenuous phonies whose real intention is to prevent actual immigration reform. (They’d prefer to distract with a fence when the real solution is penalizing employers.) And Governor Jan Brewer likes it because it reinforces her own made-up story about an increasing horde of illegal Mexicans.
<snip>

So given that Brewer’s claims aren’t provable - just the opposite - what’s she really up to? One popular rumor is that SB 1070 was a gift of legal protection to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has an infamous and exceptional lawsuit problem. The suspicion is that she gave him legalized race profiling in exchange for him not running against her in the Republican primary.

The other explanation is that Brewer is trying an update of the Republican “Southern Strategy.” In every election from Nixon to Reagan, Republicans played to the racial fears of Southern whites, first using overt racist language and later using racial code language like “state’s rights.” This is not an opinion; it’s a fact of history. It was explained by famous Reagan political strategist Lee Atwater, in a quote that’s too coarse for me to repeat, but probably important for you to read.


Read more:
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/061510_brewer_southern_strategy/#When:22:29:45Z

The NSFW Lee Atwater quote referred to can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Atwater_on_the_Southern_Strategy

[sweetloukillbot]

1. I hadn't thought about it being a sop to Arpaio to keep him out of the race...

That's an interesting idea. I've certainly seen it as a "Southern Strategy" to win her reelection in the face of competition from Goddard. SB1070 all but guaranteed her the Republican nomination.

[pinboy3niner]

2. First I heard of it, too

When Arpaio made his 11th-hour announcement that he wouldn't run, the only speculation I saw in the news media was that he didn't launch his planned gubernatorial campaign because he expected to be indicted.

With multiple investigations ongoing and still no indictment, this alternative theory seemed an interesting possibility, and at least as credible as what the pundits were suggesting.

[tanyev]

3. They need to use a little Windex on their crystal balls.

That Southern Strategy isn't going to work very well once white Southerners are no longer a voting majority.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Staving off change as long as they can seems to be a key objective

Greg Palast, writing for Truthout recently, described it as an effort to preserve the state's existing GOP power structure:

Behind the Arizona Immigration Law:
GOP Game to Swipe the November Election

Monday, April 26, 2010
by Greg Palast for Truthout.org

Don't be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens.

I don't buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.

What's new here is not the politicians' fear of a xenophobic "Teabag" uprising.
<snip>

What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote -- and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.
<snip>

But that's the point, isn't it? Not to stop non-citizens from entering Arizona -- after all, who else would care for the country club lawn? -- but to harass folks of the wrong color: Democratic blue.



http://www.gregpalast.com/behind-the-arizona-immigration-lawgop-game-to-swipe-the-november-election

[Kolesar]

7. Dead Chief Justice Rehnquist used to harass black voters at the polls in Arizona

...When he was young.

He would try to enforce Jim Crow reading requirements on voters waiting in line to vote.

John Mccain's ancestors owned slaves on a plantation in Alabama. Ahhh, Arizona!

[classysassy]

5. Jan Brewer

is she a skank,hag,bag,Skunk or just another old broad in need of some loving?

[pinboy3niner]

6. A recent profile portrayed her as shrewd and calculating

One of the choicer lines from the Daily Beast article:

"Brewer has a shrewd strategic mind masked by the chipper persona of a Barbie Doll emeritus who has yet to master the king’s English."

The Woman Immigrants Fear
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-04/arizona-gov-jan-brewer-meets-with-obama/