Bruce Bartlett

“However, annexation was extremely popular throughout the South, and the issue was seized upon by former House Speaker and Tennessee Governor James K. Polk, whose strong support for bringing Texas into the Union propelled him to the Democratic nomination and the presidency.”
― Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past

“I think Republicans should fight for the black vote and blacks should fight for a place in the Republican Party, just as they fought for their civil rights in the last century. It's a necessary thing and each may find more in common with the other than they imagine. Blacks will be in a far stronger position if both parties must compete for their votes. And the Republican Party is going to need black votes to compensate for the loss of Hispanic votes resulting from the strongly anti-immigrant views of its base—views that many blacks are in sympathy with. The passing of the generation of black leaders who led the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and the rise of a new generation of black leaders like Barack Obama and others, who have lived their whole lives in a post-civil rights society, may make possible an alliance that was unthinkable just a few years ago.”
― Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past