Ahhh, thank you for the insight and clarity. It's relatively hard to get some solid political backstory and history leading up to now in a college environment as of now. The Southern Strategy has made sense from what I've taken in history up until this point. Wasn't much time to delve into Goldwater, aside from him being framed by LBJ as a nut. Stringing together votes from one side and money from the other side of the socio-political spectrum has seemed to be ass-backwards in my view.

Because while the Democratic party is, historically, a social construct the Republican party is a fiscal one.

So when they say "donors, elected officials, court intellectuals and leading activists" they mean "everybody that isn't the Tea Party." More here.

Concise and to the point. Thank you. Especially for that link to goobster's post. I had attended FL American Legion's Boys State (essentially a supposed grooming program for potential future politicians) that was a true eye opener for how some of those inner cogs work in government. It's refreshing to see valid, backed insight into all of this. . .