Page:1976 Campaign Strategy Paper.pdf/24

 USE OP "RACIAL PROGRESS" THEME

In recent discussions, I have heard you mention that one of the main thenes of your campaign will be to highlight the role that your Adninistration has played in the progress that blacks and whites in Georgia have made in accepting integration and in learning to live and work together. Certainly this is an important issue that can he used effectively in many places. However, I think that you tend to overemphasize this issue in

terms of its potential use by you in a Presidential campaign.

Let me explain.

This country and its peeple have come a long way in the last

20 years in accepting racial integration as a fair and decent thing and in working out - in sometimes difficult situations ~ the application of that principle to their own lives. Most moderate and liberal Democrats that you are going to appeal

to expect nothing less from a Democratic Presidential candidate then a firm connitment to racial equality and justice. To dwell constantly on the issue of racial justice might suggest that you are defensive either about your own record as Governor or about being a Southerner and are attempting to compensate bY talking a lot about racial equality.

The groups of whites who have had to make the greatest sacri- fices and adjustments in accepting racial integration are the

working class men and women who have traditionally voted