We all know this, but Michael Steele -- chairman of the Republican Party -- confirmed that the Republicans have employed race-baiting as a means of winning elections:
“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South.”
And there you go. By the way, they're still doing it. The entire tea party recruitment effort is built around racial dog whistles: tax cut are good except when they go to lazy blacks, immigrants come here to deliberately get into car crashes, community organizing, etc.