The Grand (Dragon’s) Old Party

During the 1999-2000 Congress, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People gave one senator a near rock-bottom rating on its scorecard of senators’ votes on civil rights issues.

That senator was not Trent Lott; it was Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles.

Though he has virtually called for Senate Republicans to dump Lott as Senate majority leader, Nickles at times has even exceeded Lott in his zeal to torpedo civil rights protections.

Lott and Nickles opposed the creation of a federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. and voted to abolish affirmative action in federal hiring.

But on the King holiday, Nickles went further and insultingly suggested that the holiday should be an unpaid holiday, celebrated on a Sunday.

Though Lott has publicly recanted his opposition to the King holiday and affirmative action, Nickles has not.

But Nickles is not the only top Republican -- and possible successor to Lott if he steps down as majority leader -- to wallow near the bottom on the Senate civil rights scorecard.

Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell opposed expanded hate-crime protections, greater funding for minority-owned businesses, efforts to end job discrimination by sexual orientation and affirmative action in federal hiring.

These three men have drawn raves from the American Conservative Union. If Senate Republicans dump Lott or if he steps down, one of the three could succeed him.

These are Republican power brokers. Nickles, the incoming Senate majority whip, called for the Jan. 6 GOP meeting to decide whether Lott should step down. Frist headed the Senate Campaign Committee and said Thursday that he is willing to replace Lott as majority leader if he has sufficient backing from his colleagues. McConnell has supported Lott but, as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for four years, he is on the list of successor contenders.

These men are not shoot-from-the-lip, bellicose, confrontational race-baiters like Lott. They are quiet, respectable, gray-flannel opponents of civil rights. And this makes them even more terrifying than Lott.

Yet what’s even more frightening is that such men are a big reason the Republicans have resuscitated the party from its century of near extinction in the Deep South.

The transformation came in 1964. Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater rode the first tide of white backlash. He opposed the 1964 civil rights bill, railed against big government and championed states rights. Despite his landslide loss to Lyndon Johnson, Goldwater deeply planted the seed of racial pandering that would be the centerpiece of the Republican’s “Southern strategy” in the coming decades.

In 1968, Richard Nixon picked the hot-button issues of busing and quotas, adopted a policy of benign neglect and subtly stoked white racial fears. He enshrined in popular language racially tinged code words such as “permissive society,” “welfare cheats” and “subculture of violence.”

Ronald Reagan picked up the racial torch by launching the first major systematic attack on affirmative action programs and gutting many social and education programs. He refused to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus, attempted to reduce the power of the Civil Rights Commission over employment discrimination cases and opposed the extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In 1988, the elder George Bush made escaped black convict Willie Horton the poster boy for black crime and violence and turned the presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis into a rout. He branded a bill by Sen. Ted Kennedy to make it easier to bring employment discrimination suits a “quotas bill.” He further infuriated blacks by appointing archconservative Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole waltzed through his failed campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996 barely acknowledging racial issues. He flatly rejected an invitation to speak at the NAACP convention.

In 1998, the Republicans had a golden opportunity to loudly denounce race-baiting extremist groups when it was revealed that Lott and former Georgia Rep. Robert Barr had snuggled up to the pro-segregation Council for Conservative Citizens. The GOP -- including Nickles, McConnell and Frist -- was stone silent on the group.

President Bush has also subtly stoked the racial fires. He spoke at racially archaic Bob Jones University, ducked the Confederate flag fight and the racial profiling issue and refused to support tougher hate-crimes legislation.

Then there is his handling of the Lott debacle. When Lott attended a second Strom Thurmond birthday bash at the White House, there is no indication that Bush rebuked Lott for his remarks. It took nearly a week, and a firestorm of public outrage, before Bush finally condemned him.

Lott apologists worry that with him out as Senate leader, the GOP conservative agenda will go to pot. With Nickles, McConnell or Frist, and Bush as gatekeeper of that agenda, there’s no danger of that.