RICHARD NIXON and WATERGATE, 1974 Through the Fire : Harry Dent Sr, Richard Nixon and the truth about the Southern Strategy (Tapes Series 5 Special Edition)

The Richard Nixon Experience

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This is our fifth in our series of shows based on the tapes. This one is a taped conversation between President Richard Nixon and one of his top political advisors Harry Dent Sr, of my home state of South Carolina. Mr. Dent is revered here in my state for all the work he did to build the Republican Party of South Carolina. While I did not know Mr. Dent I did meet him many years ago.
This episode showcases a call on Election eve in which the President and Mr. Dent have a candid call analyzing the election returns, and the congressional situation that the President will be facing in his second term. It is a fascinating call as they go race by race, and state by state across the country. You will hear a lot of things but none of it will involve racist strategy.
Harry Dent has often been unfairly tagged as a master mind of the Southern Strategy, supposedly used by Richard Nixon to grab up the "racist Southern white vote" . It is an unfair accusation and in my opinion little more than a smear against both men.
In fact, what little truth there is to the infamous Southern Strategy can be tied to another Republican. That Republican has become the darling of the Washington press corp and D.C. elite. Somehow this group of elitist have tried to collectively erase his role in it all and place the blame on Richard Nixon.
Who was that man? It was Barry Goldwater, the 1964 nominee for President, who turned on Nixon during Watergate, ingratiating himself to a generation of liberals who had mocked him as crazy just a decade before.. If Nixon was guilty of anything at all; it was in holding the coalition, built in 1964's debacle, together with his own independent coalition in order to barely win in 1968.
This episode will go through the facts of the South's conversion to the Republican Party, Richard Nixon/s real role in it, and Barry Goldwater's role as well. Then we listen in on a call that , if you are a political junkie like me, you will listen to with total fascination. From a man, Harry Dent Sr, who later pled guilty to breaking a campaign finance law .
To his dying day , Mr. Dent claimed he only pled guilty because it was crystal clear to all that there would be no fair trials for any Watergate defendants. As we are seeing with the newly released evidence exposed by Geoff Shepard's lawsuit , more and more , Harry Dent Sr was right.