The More Things Change ...

... the more the better to reuse old tactics.

David A. Love has a great article at HuffPost Politics regarding the joint effort by conservatives to affect the vote. You think there isn't just a little racism behind this effort? Regarding James Wigderson bff Newt Gingrich, Love has this to say.

When Newt Gingrich suggested that America impose a poll test in U.S. history as a requirement for native-born citizens to vote, it was too much even for black Tea Party Congressman Allen West (R-FL). "That's going back to some times that my parents had to contend with," West said of the notion of a Jim Crow-style literacy test. "I think that we need to do a better job educating our young men and women in school, but we don't need to have a litmus test, no."

For Gingrich, who recently called Obama a "food stamp president," this is part of a pattern of racially offensive remarks, policy positions and affiliations -- against African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and others. But Gingrich is merely a spoke in the wheel. There is nationwide effort by the Republican Party to suppress voter turnout in next year's presidential election. Devoid of any ideas to beat Obama and win over the electorate, and crippled by a roster of candidates consisting of empty suits, wingnuts and the otherwise unelectable, this is their election strategy for 2012.

As Love points out, these tactics are not dissimilar to those used by Dixiecrats in the 1960s. Read the rest of the article here.