Atwater's Racist Strategy Exposed

You probably remember back in September when Jimmy Carter's grandson, James Carter IV,was instrumental in digging up and helping publicize Romney's 47% video. We all enjoyed the poetic justice of the moment that very likely contributed to Romney's defeat.

Now James Carter IV is at it again, this time digging up actual audio of Republican strategist Lee Atwater explaining the "Southern Strategy":

It has become, for liberals and leftists enraged by the way Republicans never suffer the consequences for turning electoral politics into a cesspool, a kind of smoking gun. The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves...

Here is the infamous quote:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

It's not that the words are new. This quote has been around and known since 1981. What's new, thanks to Jimmy Carter IV's work, is that we now have audio to accompany it:

This is an exclusive from The Nation. It is quite something to hear the actual words spoken, as well as hear them in their complete context (which doesn't make them any better). There is complete audio of the interview at the link.

This is the GOP strategy since 1968, and it continues today.