Law and order : Nixon's rhetoric and the Southern strategy

Abstract

Today's familiar Democratic and Republican party coalitions have not always existed; rather, they began to emerge in the 1960s as demographic and geographic groups shifted party alliances. This paper focuses on one factor in the party realignment: Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon's 1968 campaign was characterized by a balance between appeals to conservative, anti-integration Southern white voters and the risk of alienating Northern liberals. To implement this "Southern strategy," Nixon employed ostensibly race-neutral language that actually had coded racial meaning. This color-blind rhetoric was belied by the actions of the administration and Nixon's rhetorical shift to the right after taking office.