HAS ANYONE NOTICED something strange about the South and Presidential races? Memories linger of a Republican "Southern Strategy" of appealing to white Southern voters despite the losses that entail among black Northern voters. But in fact, until 2000, Southern whites were unimportant to the Republicans, while Northern blacks were highly significant.

Take a look at some history. Suppose we ignore Southern electoral votes. Which races that Republicans have won since 1900 would have been lost for lack of those Southern votes? Just one-- the 2000 Bush victory. Thus, it seems that Southern whites have not been crucial to the Republicans. Republicans were not winning because of some kind of appeal to southern Whites. Sometimes winning Republicans carried Southern states---Eisenhower in 1952, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1980 and 1984, Bush in 1988--- but in those same years they won the North too. And in the very year of the literal "Southern Strategy", 1968, Nixon lost the South to George Wallace.

But how about Democrats? Southern whites have been very important to them. Which races that Democrats won since 1900 would have been lost for lack of those Southern votes? I haven't checked, but I think they would be Wilson in 1912 and 1916, Truman in 1948, Kennedy in 1960, Carter in 1976, and Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Only Roosevelt and Johnson managed to win without the South. It is Democrats, not Republicans, who have had the delicate balancing act of trying to appeal to both Southern whites and Northern blacks. Before 2000, if the Republicans just cared about winning, they would have done better to write off the South, and instead support busing and black-directed patronage to get Northern black votes. Thus, I conclude that either Republican policies were based on principle or were aimed at Northern, not Southern, whites.

UPDATE, February 4, 2004: I was wrong. Clinton would have won in 1992 and 1996 even if he had lost all the southern states, instead of only half of them each time.