From: John Cuccia 

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:21:45 -0400, "Gary Wiltshire"
 wrote:

>I could just as easily claim I'm not a Democrat because of Sheets Byrd,
>past Kleagle and Grand Cyclops, or any of a number of his Donkey ilk who
>did their best to impede the civil rights movement and legislations --
>passed only because a larger percentage of GOP than Dems voted for them.

Except that nearly all the segregationist Southern Democrats (your
"donkey ilk") of the civil rights era are now Republicans, and
the Republicans you mention, those who supported civil rights legislation,
have all been marginalized, if not completely ostracized by the modern-day
Republican Party.

Byrd may be the only old-line Democrat bigot that didn't switch parties. 
You don't think that people like Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott began their
political lives as Republicans, do you?  Nope, they were good Southern
Democrats until the civil rights movement opened their party to blacks, at
which time the jumped the the GOP, which was successfully employing its
so-called "Southern strategy" (which was in effect "cater to
the whites who are offended by civil rights legislation") to attract
them.

Hell, if George Wallace had waited ten years to run for President, he
wouldn't have had to form his own party, he'd have been right at home as a
Republican.

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