Yeah, I was waiting for some comment on the Republican Political strategist's comments... I'm not surprised that there were none forthcoming in your counter-post.
As far as Kennedy goes with his civil rights record he was assassinated before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by his former Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who is attributed with saying that the passage of the Bill would lose the south for the democrats.
I've pointed out before that there isn't just a singular Civil Rights Act of 1964, there were several Civil Rights Acts before it, all written and pushed by Republicans. (Several in the 1870's, and two in 1957 and 1960. Kennedy either voted against, or was a no-show for the two during the Eisenhower administration. He dragged his feet in 1961, 1962 and 1963. (A typical Democrat Party pattern of stalling, delaying, outright opposing Civil Rights legislation). And again, his illegal actions along with brother RFK against MLK are outright impeachable. But because there's a D next to both names, they're considered Civil-Rights champions by ignorant liberal Democrats.
Also: It's always been funny to me that people again quote LBJ lamenting doing the right thing and "losing the south" as yet another thing that's somehow supposed to slam Republicans. He's basically lamenting that he could no longer keep doing what had always been Democrat policy- stall Civil Rights legislation and let blacks twist in the wind, in order to pander to racist southerners. It's the reason that LBJ fought to de-teeth the '57 and '60 bills.
LBJ also thanked the Republican Party for the passage of the '64 act, not his own party.
"Oh stop bringing up all this ancient history! wahh! wahh!"
(Just anticipating the typical response by lefties when all this is pointed out.)
It's not surprising that Carter won considering that his opponent was the person who pardoned President Nixon and President Carter was from GA.
So in other words, Democrats get a pass for having a "southern strategy" but Republicans should be tarred and feathered for having one. As I've pointed out before, it's not that Carter shouldn't have won, it just proves that winning the south has nothing to do with "it's racist!!" because either party wants to win a huge chunk of the United States in order to win nationally.
President Reagan announced his first presidential run near the town where civil rights activists were murdered and he talked about "states's rights" which has been cited by at least one politician as a reason that they opposed the civil rights act.
Another funny Democrat applecart that's long been overturned. Try this bit of triva on for size:
In 1980, one of the major party presidential nominees opened his general election by delivering a speech in a small town in the Deep South that just by coincidence happened to be the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. That same candidate had previously complained about federal housing policies which attempted “to inject black families into a white neighborhood just to create some sort of integration.” He argued that there was “nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained.” That candidate was President Jimmy Carter, the Democratic nominee.
http://www.volokh.com/2011/08/16/reagans-infamous-speech-in-philadelphia-mississippi/
Reagan gave his first campaign speech in New Jersey, not at the Neshoba County fair.
And the Neshoba County fair was prior to and after then a key place where major political candidates (either party) often spoke, there's simply nothing nefarious about Reagan having spoken there. People love to make things into consipriacies- why, Reagan mentioned something about states rights (as he did in New Jersey and every other state as well) in a place just a hop skip and jump away from KKK violence. Let's of course forget that just about *any* place anyone could give a speech in the south is just a hop skip and jump away from the scene of KKK and civil rights violence. (Notice how the same thing can be done to Carter, above, by taking a few points out of context and juxtaposing with the location of the speech). In other words: it's all just more horseshit.
Consider two known politicians Sen. Strom Thurmond and Sen. Robert Byrd. Both were in the democratic party and they both opposed the Civil Rights Act.
One left the democratic party and joined the republicans he never fully renounced his earlier views on race.
One who was a member of the KKK stayed in the democratic party and later renounced his earlier views on race.
Whatever. Both were assclowns, and neither one is more/less virtuous that the other based on R vs. D bullshit. Byrd used the N-word on national TV as recently as 1994. Both did all of their racist antics as members of the Democrat Party, Thurmond never as a Republican, and his record after joining the Republican Party isn't in any way racist.
Also, as I've pointed out, Democrats constantly want to ignore the OTHER 27 Dixiecrats (as well as Byrd) that stayed members of the Democrat party, as well as segregationist governors like George McGovern. It's another of those:
"Let's try and tar and feather the Republican Party with these guys!"
"But they mostly remained Democrats."
"STOP bringing up past history! Unfair! WAHHH!"