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Lee Atwater:
Interview with
Alexander
P. Lamis
J. Bradford DeLong
U.C. Berkeley
, WCEG, and
NBER
http://bradford-delong.com
brad.delong@gmail.com
@delong
1981-07-08
pages:
https://www.icloud.com/pages/
0d0PB2GUUC0hHnaMqgf6dBE8w#1981-07-08_Lee_Atwater_Intervi
ew_with_Alexander_P._Lamis
html:
6097 words
2
Lee Atwater:
To answer that question, Saul,
you have to
analyze the nature of Southern politics since the 19
4
0s. I
think Southern politics begins with V.O. Key
. W
hat he did
was analyze the Democratic party, because you didn't have
a Republican party. He came up with the idea that
the
parties
were
very factionalized. He came up with three
different types of
factions, of
state
parties,
all within the
D
emocratic
framework
. It was a
ll personality
—that
type
of
thing.
Race was not really an issue.
Race didn't become an issue in the South, again, until 1954.
Race could become an issue.
But for that s
omeone had to
be soft on the issue, but no one was. So everyone was
operating within the framework of a segregated society
. So
race never became an issue.
Obviously, from 1954 to 1966,
in that period,
race was the
issue.
Earl Black wrote a book called Southern Governors
and
Civil Rights
—t
here hadn't been a comprehensive book
written
—that
analyzes that period pretty good.
W
hat he
came up with
was
“
the segregation candidate
”
. The
candidate who best handled the segregation issue between
'54 and '66
basically
was
the winner
.
I
mportantly
,
the race
question was the top, was the issue in all Southern races.
This continued up to '70.
3
O
nce you had the
Voting Rights Act
in '64 and '65, by '66
Blacks
were participating enough in the system
. whereby
’
70 was the fi rst year
in which
race was still the dominate
issue
,
but the candidate
s
of the moderates were
consistently
winning primaries
—because
by '70 you had a large group
of
B
lack
voters
. '70 is a good year
for
you
. That is
when
you got Jimmy Carter, you got Dale Bumpers, you had
Reuben Askew, you had Bill
Br
ock, you had John West,
you
know.
A
cross the board that was a new breed of
Southern politician.
T
o some extent
this was
because they were image guys
.
The
media was being used
. M
ore importantly
,
that was the
fi rst year statistically that the
B
lacks were participating
enough to where a moderate would get to the
head of the
party.
Alexander Lamis:
That was the also year that
Carter
ran
against Sanders, losing
the race
.
Lee Atwater: In 1966 Carter ran against Sanders.
Carter, by
the way, was an interesting phenomena. Most people don't
know this but you can get
acetate [pictures]
. Carter ran a
race against Sanders. No wait a minute, let me think of the
Carter thing. Carter ran fi rst against West or Matthews.
Alexander Lamis:
Sanders was 1970.
4
Lee Atwater:
Yeah, Sanders you're right, that's when he did
the baseball pictures and all that, but that was a big, that
was not a word of racism
,
so he was doing that in the
Democratic
Pa
rty, positioned himself to come back in the
general election as the moderate against Harold Suit. But
by the way, just
as a point of reference
. What Carter did
was go out in '66 and run as the moderate candidate against
Lester and lost, and then used the Lester Maddox formula,
same formula Maddox used.
Alexander Lamis:
That was also true of George
Wallace.
Lee Atwater:
Oh sure, when he fi rst ran. But his thing was,
I am
against the nigras
.
T
he point I'm making is
:
race was the dominate issue in
Southern politics, all through the 50s and 60s.
In the
70s
,
it
began
diminishing
because of
two things.
The competitive two parties.
In the
60s you had the
Goldwater
phenomenon and you had Nixon and so forth,
but basically the 70s was when you had a crystallized two
party thing beginning.
T
he crucial thing in 1980 is
, number one,
that t
he two
dominant issues of Southern politics
which
had been race
and party
—
meaning you had to be a Democrat to win,
and
they had
pretty well sewn it up.
And
the main issues
became the economy and national defense.
5
Now that's interesting in that those are the issues basically
that
Goldwater
, in other words the
S
outh in 1964 was
considered reactionary,
N
eanderthalic
,
and so forth
,
because we weren't mainstream on not only on the race
thing but on the economic issues and national defense and
all
. W
e were considered ultra-conservative and everything.
What happens is a guy like Reagan who campaigns in 1980
on a 1964
Goldwater
platform, minus the boo-boos and
obviously the Voting Rights Act, TBA
,
and all that bullshit.
But when you look at the economics and national defense,
what had happened is that the South went from being
behind the times to being the mainstream.
In other words,
so
what you had was two things happening
that totally washed away the Southern strategy, the Harry
Dent-type southern
strategy
. T
hat whole strategy was based
—
although it was a more sophisticated than a Bilbo or a
George Wallace
—it was nevertheless based
on coded
racism. The whole thing. Bussing.
We want
a supreme
court judge that wouldn't
[inaudible]
rights
. Anything you'd
look at could be traced back to the
race
issue
and
the old
Southern strategy.
And it was not done in a blatantly discriminatory way.
But the Reagans did not have to do a Southern strategy for
two reasons.
Number one, race was not a dominant issue.
6
And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign
had been
“
Southern issues
”
since way back in the 60s. So
Reagan goes out and campaigns on the economics and on
national defense, the whole campaign was devoid of any
kind of racism, any kind of reference.
And I'll tell you another thing you all need to think about,
that's even surprised me. It's the lack of interest, really, a
lack of knowledge right now in the South among white
voters on this Voting Rights Act. I brought
all these
Republican state chairm
e
n up here to just kind of soothe
them down and say, 'look before we have this meeting, look
we may not do exactly what you all like.' And what I found
out about it is all of them were
very
pacifi sts and 'we'll
pretty well go
along
with whatever you want.' And I looked
at polls in the last four to fi ve months, and there's just no
interest or no intensity on that thing among white voters.
Now
,
back
in 1969,
me bringing up
now Harry Dent, rather
than me bringing up those gentlemen who are going to do
very big important things in the South and come up here
with some kind of manifesto. That would have been a big
major news story. Ongoing and all that shit.
Alexander Lamis:
I'm just wondering about not the residual
evidence of that
. t
here
’
s no
race
, but there is bus
sing
as an
issue.
Lee Atwater:
What issue?
7
Alexander Lamis:
Bus
sing
. And they were a bit of an issue.
Lee Atwater:
Okay, let's talk about what an issue is
,
Saul.
W
hen I talk about an issue
… Say
I'm a pollster, I ask an
open-ended question, 'what's the biggest issue facing you
today?' You poll 600 people and then you put on a
continuum. 45 to 55
%
will say economics, 12
%
will say
national defense, bussing will not even register on the top
10. On an aggregate, bussing hadn't been in the top 10 of
open-ended issue questions on any poll I've seen since
1972
. A
nd now it's gone. No no no, excuse me Saul, not out
of line. It's gone. It's been on the top 10, but it hadn't been
top 10 in 1978 to 1980, bussing hadn't even a top 10 issue.
So sure, everything's an issue, but what I'm saying...
Alexander Lamis:
I'm just wondering how much residual
there is, that color racism and the anti-government, anti-
Washington states rights, return to states rights, de-
federalize... how much there is in the old day, residual of
the old days and the antipathy towards welfare programs,
poverty
programs, which all
provide
Blacks
.
And other political social economic problems which do
give power to
B
lack folks, or poor folks or identify the
bigger problem. Again, it's much bigger than
southern
, but
the
L
egal
S
ervices
C
orporation
—
they give
problems
to the
municipalities of Mississipp
i when they want a
gerrymander
there
,
and I'm just wondering...
8
Lee Atwater:
Sure, but I think this, and don't get me wrong
:
Y
ou go out there in the white country clubs
,
and they're still
going to sit down and say, 'shit I'm tired of them getting
everything
’,
and all that. But the bottom line is, I gotta look
here
. The bottom line is it's a mainstream thing now
,
and
it's not grounded in racism as much as it kind of the
“N
etwork
”
movie syndrome
:
"I'm mad as hell and I can't
take it.
”
Now
,
statistically, the poor people who are receiving all
these things are
Bl
acks. Now some of the Southern stuff
might still be racism, but there's such a wide spread right
now I think it's almost evolving into a class struggle-type
issue, rather than a racism issue.
Alexander Lamis:
When you say widespread, you mean ...
Lee Atwater:
I can go to a country club, you know, I live on
a country club.
Alexander Lamis:
Okay.
Lee Atwater:
But what I'm saying is you sit in a
country
club
anywhere, and they'll still say, 'I'm tired of these
fuckers ....'
Alexander Lamis:
Anywhere in the country, I understand
yeah.
9
Lee Atwater: And if were a
B
lack, it wouldn't make any
difference.
There's always going to be a ... I'll say this, my generation,
you're my generation, we're the fi rst generation of
Southerner
s
that's not been racist. Totally. In other words,
my parents and even people fi ve or ten years older than me
were touched with things they were
believing
. But what I'm
saying is that
has been sublimated
by a bunch of other
issues. But more importantly, just people in the South are
just like any people in the history of the world. Once
something becomes a reality,
people adapt
to it. We fall, we
kick, we struggle with all of these problems, fi rst in '54
when Voting Rights deposition, but by the
‘
70s it was a
reality. And you just
adapt to reality
and move on. So I'm
not saying that it was done that
way
because it we thought
it was great and we fi nally understood anything. We
continued far and on. So when they say the election... So
what I'm saying, back to that Southern strategy.
So the Southern strategy now, basically, and here's another
thing, so we haven't talked about this.
It's who controls
elections in the South. State-wide elections in the South are
controlled by, I'm going to use the term George Wallace
voters. Because statistically
Bl
acks went for John F
.
Kennedy en masse, they went for Johnson en masse, they
went for Humphrey en masse, they went for Carter en
masse, and McGovern en masse.
10
