Pejman Yousefzadeh seems to think that Zell Miller had something in common with Scoop Jackson. That’s a mistake.
Jackson was an economic and social liberal, especially on civil-rights issues, who was also a Cold War hawk (unsurprisingly given the role of Boeing in the Washington State economy back then). I wasn’t among his admirers, but his position was a clear and honorable one.
Zell Miller quite another, and far less honorable, beast. He is a Dixiecrat: that is, a social and economic conservative hawk who carries the Democratic Party label. Outsiide Georgia, most of the Dixiecrats — Trent Lott, for example, and his hero Strom Thurmond, and his protege Charles Pickering — moved to the Republican Party as the Republicans switched from being the pro-black party to being the anti-black party.
Miller was the runningmate of the frankly racist Lester Maddox. (Maddox got his political start as a restauranteur who distributed ax handles to his white customers to be used on the persons of any blacks who came to eat at the restaurant). Commenting on Lyndon Johnson’s civil-rights agenda in 1964, Miller said that Johnson had “sold his birthright for a mess of dark pottage.”
There’s still room for liberal and moderate hawks in the Democratic Party: Bob Graham, for example, or Wes Clark, or Joe Lieberman. Thank God, there’s no longer room for Zell Miller and his ilk. Good riddance to bad rubbish, and I wish the Republicans joy of their purchase.
Update and correction It turns out that Miller wasn’t ever a real Dixiecrat. He was merely willing to race-bait to get elected, and angry with LBJ for endorsing his opponent.
Pondering the bounce
I’ll admit I was about the last person who would have predicted a large convention bounce for the incumbent—heck, I’m on record predicting a narrow Kerry victory, and that was largely predicated on Bush receiving about the same bounce…