Why did it happen? Why is the George Bush Republican Party repudiating the policies which put Republicans in power? The core reason is probably because the old northeast liberal Rockefeller Republican attitudes from which the Bush family comes is reasserting power in the Republican Party. Rockefeller Republicans have no use for conservative Southerners and our views.

Republicans also dropped the Southern Strategy because of the fight over abortion and church/state issues. Mehlman’s apology at the NAACP convention was merely the public acknowledgment of a decision which was actually made in 1994, the year George Bush ran for Governor of Texas.

The fight over abortion and separation of church and state politicized the religious right. And one of its chief strategists was Ralph Reed, once head of the Christian Coalition, now Republican political strategist, influence peddler, and candidate for Georgia Lt. Governor.

At a 1994 meeting in Atlanta, led by then party chief Haley Barbour (now Governor of Mississippi), Republican strategists made a major decision: Republicans should go for the black vote. The reasoning seems to have been this: Most blacks are religious, and they are religious conservatives.

Once you get past civil rights issues like affirmative action and economic liberalism, most blacks are fundamentalist Christians, social traditionalists who like the idea of the Ten Commandments, prayer in schools, traditional social values, and opposition to abortion—core convictions of the religious right. Since those things are increasingly what the Republican Party is about, Republicans decided to recruit blacks. The party decided to downplay or disavow any issue which could potentially impede that goal.

Republican strategists see Southern Heritage as perhaps the party’s biggest obstacle to winning increased black support, and they are as opposed to it as is the NAACP. But Republicans want to keep their southern white base even as they desert it.

The NEW Republicans are erasing Southern Heritage with a low, but effective, profile. They let Jesse Jackson, Bill Bradley, Al Gore, Zell Miller, and other Democrats get the anti-heritage publicity, while Republicans act more quietly. For example, Democrat Roy Barnes reduced the Confederate Battle Flag to a postcard on the Georgia Flag, but Republican Sonny Perdue removed it entirely!

The stakes are very high, and involve Republican plans at the highest levels. The Party plans to run the country for the next several decades. Anyone, any idea, any group which threatens that ambition is a target.

Many strategies are at work against Southern Heritage, and Republican operatives are doubtless involved in some of them. One of the best ways to destroy the effectiveness of groups working to save our Old South/Confederate inheritance is by dividing and misleading them--—by whatever means and tactics. Republicans have a very strong influence in Southern heritage organizations, so it’s easy for Party operatives to engage in disruptive tactics intended to mislead, manipulate, and divide individuals and organizations.

Politically active Southern Heritage groups like GHC are inviting targets for attack by these Party operatives. GHC is high profile, and criticizes both parties. I expect organized efforts to discredit GHC are being planned if not already activated. The tactics will all be aimed at discrediting our organization and our views, painting us a radicals, irrelevant, and ultimately, hoping to shut down our organization if possible. It’s the price we pay for doing the right thing.