Atwater knew more about it than either of us (and it's not like he "revealed" the Southern Strategy to the world, he just provided details and elaborated on how it metamorphosized under Reagan). I certainly never said the whole GOP is racist; just as when they were leading the country to its bloodiest war on the claim that slavery was immoral (only to abandon Southern blacks for a century, and only ten years after the war ended) it's a purely mercenary position. Atwater diagnosed it well, IMHO; the GOP leadership doesn't hate blacks, but most of it seems completely insensitive to the POOR, of which a disproportionate number happen to be black. Of course, you can't sell "we want to screw poor people" in rural Alabama, so you sell it as screwing blacks instead.

Bottom line remains that I'm just repeating criticisms your party leadership has made of themselves, and since they were there and you and I weren't, I'm more inclined to accept their version of events than yours.