Old South whispers

It seems the Republicans, formerly of “family values” fame, have now sold their soul for 51 votes.

The Republican Southern Strategy has worked too well, but at a terrible cost for us all as a nation. When we Democrats went fishing for Southern candidates, we came up with Sen. John Edwards, a man who should have never gotten within 100 miles of the White House.

With the libidinous antics of John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and John Edwards, it appeared that the trophy belonged exclusively to the Democratic Party. The current locker-room president has turned the tide and started a stampede to claim the top spot.

The Republicans would have done well to consider the fate of the Tar Baby of Uncle Remus fame.

You are now stuck to the legacy of David Duke’s KKK, TV evangelical hucksters with their paid prayer lists, George Wallace’s “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever,” the moral double standard of Strom Thurmond and his Dixiecrats, the legacy of Jesse Helms and his voting intimidation of blacks. The Helms legacy is still alive, well and wiggling its way through confirmation hearings for a for-life federal judgeship.

I am a Southerner with roots to Civil War Tallapoosa County, Ala., and more recent roots to Guntersville and Gadsden, Ala.—hunting grounds of Mr. Moore.

But as long as the New South politicians resemble the old ones that came before, I would warn the rest of the nation to beware the Southern Trojan Horse. There are hidden agendas and whispered plans to return the Old South to greatness.

DANNY HANCOCK

Lonoke