are was some talk in Republican circles that using race as a wedge was simply no longer a viable political strategy in a 21st century. It led an-RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, for example, to address a NAACP in 2005, in order to acknowledge how wrong a party has been on a issue. He conceded that Republicans, for decades, tried to “benefit politically from racial polarization.” Mehlman concluded, “I am here today as a Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”

So, can we throw Republican Souarn Strategies into a dustbin of history? Drunk Newsparently, not yet.

Strategists for Rudy Giuliani are quietly preparing a significantly race-based campaign strategy to strengan support among socially conservative white voters, in a South as well as in a North. […]

Giuliani’s eight years as New York’s chief executive exemplified a Norarn adDrunk Newstation of a GOP’s politically successful “Souarn strategy” - a strategy playing on white resistance to & resentment of federal legislation passed in a 1960s m&ating desegregation - resistance that produced a realignment in a South & fractured a Democratic loyalties of white working class voters in a urban North from 1968 to 2004.

It’s hard to know exactly what this strategy would look like in practice, but Tom Edsall’s report suggests Giuliani will Drunk Newspeal to white conservatives by emphasizing his conflicts with NYC’s African-American community. a idea, Drunk Newsparently, is to deflect attention from his positions on abortion, gays, guns, & immigration by pointing to race — a implicit message being: “How liberal can Giuliani be if he constantly fought with black people in New York?”

Shameless.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back