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Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Sunday pointed to the roots of Southern strategy of the late 1960s -- which appealed to racism in the South -- as an example of how the Republican Party should reform itself after President Barack Obama won re-election.

"If the reaction to the election is let's dig into our core principles and try to remake them, I think the GOP will lose even more seats in 2014," Ingraham told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "If it becomes a bidding war with Republicans in either this group or that group -- whether it's Latinos or women -- we're going to give you more stuff or we're going to do amnesty plus... it's not going to work."

"The Republicans have to take a lesson from -- and I hate to bring up Reagan again -- when Goldwater got shellacked in '64, Bill Buckley and Brent Bozell Sr. and all these conservatives got together and they said, we're going to figure out how to sell this idea of economic conservatism and the conservative framework to new voters. And they went into the South and they transformed Mississippi and Alabama, all these places where people had never voted Republican before."

In his book "From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism," author Joseph Lowndes points out that William F. Buckley used the National Review to argue that southern whites were superior to blacks and Brent Bozell wrote that the federal government had no right to end segregation.

The National Review later moved away from overt racism and supported Barry Goldwater, whose presidential run became the template for the "Southern strategy" to appeal to white voters in the South.

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Mitt Romney decided to double down on his opposition to gay marriage during his commencement address at Liberty University this Saturday. After having the unfortunate circumstance of watching the entire twenty minute speech which aired on C-SPAN, if you thought some of his speeches on the campaign trail were bad, this one was worse. The response from the crowd for the better part of the speech was tepid at best except for the portion where he spoke out against gay marriage, which did get him a healthy round of applause.

Romney's presence at the University was not welcomed by all. After the announcement that Romney would be giving the commencement address, students were protesting the school's decision to have him there: Liberty's choice of Romney leads to angry student response.

And this Saturday, there was this: Gay Republicans Slam Romney For Speaking At Liberty:

The gay consevative group GOProud is not happy Mitt Romney chose to speak at Liberty University Saturday.

A statement from GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia was sent to reporters as Romney delivered his address:

Today, Governor Mitt Romney spoke at Liberty University. Liberty was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, who in 2007 said, “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers … AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

The speech at Liberty comes just days after top Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said that Governor Romney would campaign on the issue of marriage. In response, JimmyLaSalvia, Executive Director and Co-Founder of GOProud – a national organization of gay and straight Americans seeking to promote freedom by supporting free markets, limited government, and a respect for individual rights, issued the following statement:

“The father of the modern conservative movement, former US Senator Barry Goldwater, once said of Jerry Falwell that he needed a kick in the ass. With his speech at Falwell’s Liberty University, it is clear that Governor Romney’s message to Goldwater conservatives is: drop dead.

You can read the rest of their response in the post at TPM. He was also met with this from MoveOn today: Romney’s Liberty University Speech Protested From The Air:

The student loan debate was (literally) in the air as Mitt Romney prepared to make his commencement address at Liberty University here. As the graduation ceremony at this evangelical Christian university began, a single-engined plane flew circles around the commencement towing a banner reading “GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT.”

The fight to extend the interest rate on Stafford loans is one of the few where President Obama and Romney are on the same page. Both favor extending low interest rates on Stafford student loans. The extension is currently tied up in Congress, where Republicans and Democrats are split on how to pay for the rate extension.

Transcript of Romney's remarks in the clip above below the fold via:

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Rachel Maddow hits another one out of the ballpark with her reporting on the GOP's resurrection of the Southern Strategy for the mid-term 2010 elections. What's astounding, as she notes, is that they're not paying a price for it from the media. Time will tell shortly if they pay one with the electorate. I'm not sure if they're capable of enough caging operations to make up for the amount of bigotry and race-baiting we've seen from Republicans this year. Maybe they're just counting on Diebold to make up for it instead.

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Will Tea Partiers Have a Veto Over the 2012 GOP Nominee?

That was the “Matthews Meter” question for the panel this weekend on The Chris Matthews Show where they discussed whether the Tea Partiers are going to drag the party further to the right, as the right led by Barry Goldwater did back in the 60's. His regulars are split including Gloria Borger who says let's wait for the mid-term elections and see how independent voters end up reacting to their candidates and doesn't think they're going to have enough power to have a veto power over who their presidential nominee is.

Dan Rather disagreed with Borger and agreed with Matthews that at least one of the people on the Republican presidential ticket was going to have to be someone that the Tea Party was satisfied with.

Richard Stengel is asked about Sarah Palin and what kind of power she's going to wield and Matthews notes that Palin is not just picking “stupid right wingers” but winners. (Note to Chris Matthews, not all of her picks have been winners, some have been right wingers and she's often waiting until those picks are fairly safe before she makes them. I know you and Uncle Pat love her, but she's not some political genius.)

Stengel agrees that Palin will wield a lot of power because so much of the Republican electorate is “listening to the silent song of Sarah Palin” but also notes that there's not going to be some big rift in the party no matter who they choose because the truth of the matter is the “mainstream” of the Republican Party and their right wing base are not that far apart ideologically, unlike the days of Rockefeller and Goldwater Matthews showed earlier in the segment.

That got a good chuckle from the panel who were amused by Stengel's statement. Whether it is because they agreed with it or not I'm not sure. That seems to be the big elephant in the room they all managed to almost get to but failed to discuss in this segment. This is not just a matter of whether the Republican Party is going to continue to move further to the right for the next election cycle. It's a question of whether they're ever going to move back to the center if they see some short term gains in these mid-term elections.

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