I'm not. Nor am I assuming that all southern Republicans are Dixiecrats--some of them are Bush republicans. I know they aren't the same group. Those Republican and Democrat Southerners who don't want to be associated with the Dixiecrat ideology want to jettison it more than anyone, in my experience. The point of the above two posts is really to show that Lott is from the Dixiecrat mold Bush republicans are trying to escape, just like the Clinton democrats are. Neither party can afford to allow the Dixiecrat wings of their party to dictate policy any longer. I'm suggesting the republicans just figured that out first, and will now try and capitalize on Lott's foot in mouth disease to do it. The Clinton "New Democrats" on the other hand, seem more convinced of the need to cater to the old Dixiecrat South than ever--that is their justification for moving the Democratic Party to the so-called center (ie moving far to the right of the Establishment Left) in the 1990s under Clinton.