# Does it matter that a racial eugenicist is running for Congress in Tennessee? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 17, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703 "2004-10-17T19:58:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/1 "2004-10-17T19:58:46Z")
In the 8th Congressional District of Tennessee, James Hart is the Republican running against incumbent Democrat John Tanner. Hart is a racist – not an everybody-just-knows-it racist like Jesse Helms, but an **open** racist, the kind who really believes nonwhites are genetically mentally inferior to whites, and says so. His campaign is based on “eugenics.” One of the sections of his platform is labelled “Stop Welfare and Immigration Replace it with a War on Poverty Genes”. (He’s also against “usury,” by which, near as I can tell, he means charging any interest at all on loans.) The Tennessee Republican Party has made very clear it wants nothing to do with Hart. Until this year he was not even a registered Republican. He’s on the ballot only because Tanner is considered unbeatable and no other Pub bothered to run against him. One might say Hart’s candidacy reflects on racism in the Republican Party, but only in the sense that it would seem even more preposterous for him to run as a Democrat. (Of course, the Dems have their Lyndon LaRouche.) And of course, he’s not going to win. No way is he going to win. That said, I wonder: What does this say about our society, 30 years after the civil rights movement seemed to have won all its battles for good and all? There was a time, remember, when not many but **most** white Americans, even Northerners, had substantially the same views Hart has of racial differences. How many are there today, I wonder, who think that way but just don’t talk about it publicly, because you can catch so much shit for publicly espousing racism without using any code-words or euphemisms? Here’s a link to Hart’s website. Mods, please do not come down on me for linking to a “hate site.” This is, like it or not, the official campaign site of a candidate for Congress. [http://www.jameshartforcongress.com/](http://www.jameshartforcongress.com/) ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/2 "2004-10-17T20:14:04Z")
It means that all that civilized people can really do is to ridicule these neanderthals whenever and wherever they pop up so they can’t put on some sort of veil of significance, and wait for them all to die. It’s harsh. But it’s true. You can’t turn someone like this from the dark side. They’re completely impervious to reason. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/3 "2004-10-17T20:15:09Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > It means that all that civilized people can really do is to ridicule these neanderthals whenever and wherever they pop up so they can’t put on some sort of veil of significance, and wait for them all to die. > > It’s harsh. But it’s true. You can’t turn someone like this from the dark side. They’re completely impervious to reason. And it should be noted that this is also the proper strategy for dealing with the homophobic cavemen, except that we have a little longer to wait on that one. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/4 "2004-10-17T20:20:20Z")
> [@](#): > > That said, I wonder: What does this say about our society, 30 years after the civil rights movement seemed to have won all its battles for good and all? I would quibble that the civil rights movement never “won all its battles for good and all,” but I don’t think that would be the salient point, here, anyway. What this says about our society is that we are still sufficiently tolerant of expression–of all sorts–that the occasional loon get still get his voice heard. If Hart wins any sizeable portion of the vote\* or if Hart was getting support from the Republican Party or if Hart was _not_ an anomaly, I would say that it was a pretty severe condemnation of our society. However, the fact that one kook can wangle a nomination (when the party he used had abandoned any effort at that seat) says only that the cries of those who claim that “PC” has destroyed free expression in this country are, obviously, in error. - Even a good portion of the vote might not be an utter condemnation of that district if his opponent took a stand on an issue seriously at odds with the electorate or if, depsite his website, Hart was not really pushing his racism in his radio, TV, newspaper, and billboard ads. ---
**Author:** ![Leonard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@Leonard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leonard)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/5 "2004-10-17T20:28:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > How many are there today, I wonder, who think that way but just don’t talk about it publicly, because you can catch so much shit for publicly espousing racism without using any code-words or euphemisms? I’m sure it varies by region. Of course it would be impossible to get any kind of accurate survey. Around here, I know of…(ahem)…several. There is actually a part of town known as ‘Klan Kountry.’ At least there’s no sign advertising it anymore. It disappeared just a few years ago. Ironically enough, that part of town is the absolute trashiest part. _Much_ worse than the traditionally black part of town. ---
**Author:** ![ScoobyTX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@ScoobyTX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScoobyTX)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/6 "2004-10-17T20:30:42Z")
Is there any evidence that Mr. Hart is receiving any support from the national party? I know that in Texas, I could have run for Congress as a Democrat in the 10th District by merely renting an apartment a few blocks East of my house and paying the filing fee. I would have been the only candidate in the Dem primary and made it on the Nov. ballot as a Dem. Not that the party would support me, unless I had both a realistic chance of winning and compatible politics (neither apply, unless going by pre-1980’s Texas Democratic Party standards- a lot more “conservative”). ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/7 "2004-10-17T20:37:53Z")
> [@ScoobyTX](#): > > Is there any evidence that Mr. Hart is receiving any support from the national party? No. The local Republicans tried to get him to lose the primary with a write-in campaign. Also, the Tennessee Repuplican Party passed a resolution telling people to oppose Hart. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/8 "2004-10-17T20:38:26Z")
Re **ScoobyTX** ’s question - why didn’t the party go, find someone who lives in the district and say “Chris, you’ve been a loyal Republican for years. Will you please, please, please put your name on the ballot? We’ll pay the filing fee; we’ll handle all the secretarial work. You don’t have to do anything, say anything, as it’s a given that you’re not going win. All we need is a name so that James Hart is not associated with us.” $35 bucks (or whatever it is in Tenessee, it can’t be that much, though, can it?) and a mailing to the party faithful saying “Please, please don’t vote for Hart in the primary” and there’s no issue. That’s pretty easy - why didn’t they do it? ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/9 "2004-10-17T20:46:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Re ScoobyTX’s question - why didn’t the party go, find someone who lives in the district and say “Chris, you’ve been a loyal Republican for years. Will you please, please, please put your name on the ballot? We’ll pay the filing fee; we’ll handle all the secretarial work. You don’t have to do anything, say anything, as it’s a given that you’re not going win. All we need is a name so that James Hart is not associated with us.” As I understand it, nobody knew who Hart was. All the Republican Party thought was some idiot had decided to waste his time to run. It was only only after the time period the party could have opposed Hart being on the primary ballot or get someone else on the primary ballot that Hart began giving speeches and the Republican Party was not too happy about what he said, but it was too late. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/10 "2004-10-17T20:48:55Z")
> [@ScoobyTX](#): > > Is there any evidence that Mr. Hart is receiving any support from the national party? I don’t think so. In fact, the local Republicans tried to keep him off the ballot. From [http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=stepdad&static=271175:](http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=stepdad&static=271175:) > [@](#): > > It starts with the 8th District congressional race. The Republican party of Shelby County Tennessee was not able to find a candidate to put on the ballot. Considering the rather nasty vetting that candidates, particularly conservative ones can face from the media and the opposition campaign this is really not all that surprising. The democratic incumbent was fairly well entrenched, and as a result the Republican Party of Shelby County did not have a candidate to put forward. This is actually quite common, uncontested races such as this one happen often throughout the entire country. > > So how did Hart manage to get his name on the ballot as a Republican candidate? Don Johnson of the Shelby County Republican party gave us some rather interesting information that the press has not yet bothered to report on. Mr. Johnson told us “We were pulling the forms from the Election Commission for Shelby County but Hart filed in another county so we never knew until it was too late.” > > So Hart snuck off to another county, registered for the primary as a Republican knowing there was no other Republican in the race. By the time the Shelby County Republican Party found out about it, it was too late. The deadline for filing had already passed. So how hard is it to get on the ballot before the deadline? Again Mr. Johnson provided us with some great insight into how this could happen. Apparently in Tennessee it only takes 25 signatures to get your name on the ballot provided you file prior to the deadline date. > > By the time the Shelby County Republican Party found out James Hart’s name was on the ballot, it was too late. The deadline had come and gone, they couldn’t get another candidate listed on the ballot after the deadline. So did the Shelby County Republican’s just give up? Not at all. > > They did what they could to try and stop Hart from winning the primary. Mr. Johnson told us, “On July 1, we passed that resolution and sent it to media outlets and did not receive any responses. In the middle of July, we published a sample ballot to 70,000 Shelby County households with the name of the write-in candidate that Republicans in the district were supporting.” > > Sadly however, despite their best efforts Hart still managed to win the nomination. So how did he pull it off? After all, the Republican Party of Shelby had contacted all the local media and asked to convey this information to the general public and prevent Hart from winning the nomination. The local media apparently took no interest in the story until the day before the primary, which simply wasn’t enough time to get the word out. The local media also apparently didn’t bother to mention that the Republican party was attempting to nominate a write in candidate to prevent Hart from winning the nomination. Without proper the media coverage, most voters had any idea who Hart was or what he stood for. > > As Mr. Johnson informed us, “Then, after Early voting had ended and just one day before the primary election, the media finally noticed the issue but gave little mention of our write-in alternative. Unfortunately, a write-in candidacy is very difficult and the challenge proved to be too difficult to overcome.” From [http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article\_53820.asp:](http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_53820.asp:) > [@](#): > > Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Randy Button called on state Republican Party Chairwoman Beth Harwell today to denounce the candidacy of James L. Hart, Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives for the 8th district. > > \ > > Later Friday, the group TeamGOP called Mr. Button a “racial opportunist” by “making the insincere and outrageously divisive claim that Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Beth Harwell and the entire Republican Party should denounce the candidacy of James Hart because of his platform of hate and racism.” > > TeamGOP’s General Chairman and Board Member Jeff Ward called Button’s actions, “racial politics at its lowest common denominator and should be beneath a person like Button who holds a position of responsibility.” Ward declared the actions Button decried had already been done. > > Ward denied that Republicans had not condemned the Hart campaign, saying, “That is flatly untrue and is yet another example of gutter politics by the Democrats during an election year that is already going badly for their party. > > "Perhaps Mr. Button has not seen a newspaper in the last couple of weeks like The Tennessean, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, The Knoxville News Sentinel, The LA Times or The Miami Herald and many others where Republican denunciations of Hart’s campaign of hate have been published and often repeated. > > "Perhaps Mr. Button has been to busy to look on the internet in the last week on sites from [ABCNews.com](http://ABCNews.com), [FoxNews.com](http://FoxNews.com), [Newsday.com](http://Newsday.com) to the [DrudgeReport.com](http://DrudgeReport.com) to see these same denunciations and repudiations of James Hart and the wholehearted endorsement of the unsuccessful write-in candidate Dennis Bertrand. > > “If Mr. Button had acted responsibly, he would have easily discovered the thousands of emails sent out by Chairman Beth Harwell, TeamGOP, and County Republican Parties from Memphis to Alamo to Republicans and news outlets denouncing Mr. Hart and his racist campaign. Instead, Mr. Button decided to revel in his own self-inflicted ignorance and create racial division in the hopes of political gain for the Democrat Party.” > [@tomndebb](#): > > . . . or if, depsite his website, Hart was not really pushing his racism in his radio, TV, newspaper, and billboard ads. He doesn’t have a big campaign budget. He’s campaigning by going door-to-door (in white neighborhoods only – and in rural Tennessee the races live pretty much apart) and handing out literature, which has roughly the same content as his website. It’s described here – [http://www.rickross.com/reference/hate\_groups/hategroups382.html:](http://www.rickross.com/reference/hate_groups/hategroups382.html:) > [@](#): > > “I’m James Hart, and I’m running for Congress,” he will tell homemakers, retirees and people home early from work. “I believe white children deserve the same rights as everyone else. If you agree with me, you can vote for me in November.” > > Most people will smile politely. Some will nod. Some will shut the door in his face. > > For Hart this is personal, an atonement for sins most voters know nothing about. > > For the people of western Tennessee, it is about race and old wounds. Hart’s campaign has stirred anger and shame in towns where blacks and whites live apart. It has raised ghosts. > > Hart says his only supporter is his 93-year-old mother, Mary. But he did win the primary with 79 percent of the vote. Then there’s the guy who offered to design his Web site. And the 824 who have voted in favor of government-enforced eugenics in his Internet poll. > > Hart’s site attracts debate the way a lightning rod draws electricity. But he doesn’t have Internet access at home. He can’t hear the conversation. > > What he knows is that Americans are afraid. Afraid of jobs going overseas. Afraid of people coming to take good jobs here. > > These old fears still resonate. In Dresden, where the radio station plays Elvis Presley, the shirt and dress factories that once employed hundreds are gone. The book factory that ran three shifts now has about 30 employees. > > From all over America, visitors to Hart’s Web site are having their say. > > This man is courageous and upholding the ascendant laws of nature written by God himself. > > Eugenics should be enforced only to the point of preventing James Hart and people like him. > > I am hoping that White people will wake up and vote you into office. > > I sincerely encourage you (Mr. Hart) to eat a bullet. For eugenics sake. > > Hart won the Republican nomination for the same reason most candidates lose: No one knew who he was. > > For the past 16 years, Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District has been represented by a conservative Democrat. Rep. John Tanner is so popular that the Republicans didn’t bother to field a challenger. Hart needed only 25 signatures to get on the ballot. > > The district is a rough triangle of land stretching from the edge of Memphis to the western suburbs of Nashville, bending with the banks of the Mississippi and tracing the Kentucky border for 100 miles. In 2002, nearly 168,000 people voted in the congressional race. Hart, who ran as an independent, got about 2.5 percent of the vote. > > He admits he’s not really a Republican and the Tennessee GOP wants nothing to do with him. > > This spring, Dennis Bertrand, a 53-year-old insurance agent, returned from a stint in Iraq with the National Guard and looked up Hart’s Web site. Too late to make the ballot, he launched a write-in campaign and received less than a quarter of the vote. > > In the small towns of the 8th District, race is spoken of in hushed tones. Segregation is over, but blacks and whites inhabit separate worlds. They pray and socialize apart. Even progressives tread gingerly around issues like interracial marriage. > > “I would say the change has been pretty slow here,” Bertrand said. > > James Hart is 60, a wiry, intense man with spiked silver hair and a sprinter’s metabolism. He campaigns at a brisk walk, cutting across lawns, leaping up steps. > > After two decades at Century 21, he can case a neighborhood with a glance. He chooses well-kept single-family subdivisions whose residents are white and comfortably middle class. > > Hart doesn’t chat with voters. He doesn’t ring doorbells. He knocks and, if no one answers, leaves a flier wedged against the doorframe. He’s relieved when no one comes to the door. > > It’s unpleasant, he says, telling people things they don’t want to hear. That Asians are smarter than Africans. That Detroit is depressed because it’s predominantly black. That immigration and welfare are destroying America’s cities. > > "If we had integrated with less “favored races’ centuries ago, there would never have been an automobile,” Hart’s flier says. “There would never have been an electric light. There would never have been an airplane.” > > Hart’s racism is only the most accessible part of his platform. Eugenics comes from the Greek word “well-born.” A hundred years ago in America, it was a movement. > > Scientists thought they could rid society of poverty and crime by breeding better human beings. More than 60,000 people were forcibly, legally sterilized. The American experiment was a model for Nazi Germany. > > Hart wants to give “productive and creative” people economic incentives to reproduce while discouraging the poor from having children. > > “I will not win the election, but if I were to win, it would not be because people agree with my ideas,” he said. “They don’t even know what my ideas are. It would be white backlash.” > > On Maple Lane, Terry Odle shook Hart’s hand and pledged his vote. > > “I like what he stands for,” said Odle, 37, a Dresden alderman. “White folks are getting the shaft here lately. We’re a minority. It’s time to get back on track.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/11 "2004-10-17T20:53:34Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s pretty easy - why didn’t they do it? I don’t know what _really_ happened, here, but it is not unusual that in districts where the incumbent is a shoo-in that the opposing party never invests the energy to put up an opponent, at all. In those situations, it is really not that rare for some loon to walk into the place of registry at 4:15 on the last day to file and put themselves in nomination for the candidacy. At that point, the party is left with a write-in campaign for the primary election as their only hope. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/12 "2004-10-17T21:00:27Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > Re **ScoobyTX** ’s question - why didn’t the party go, find someone who lives in the district and say “Chris, you’ve been a loyal Republican for years. Will you please, please, please put your name on the ballot? We’ll pay the filing fee; we’ll handle all the secretarial work. You don’t have to do anything, say anything, as it’s a given that you’re not going win. All we need is a name so that James Hart is not associated with us.” > $35 bucks (or whatever it is in Tenessee, it can’t be that much, though, can it?) and a mailing to the party faithful saying “Please, please don’t vote for Hart in the primary” and there’s no issue. That’s pretty easy - why didn’t they do it? They tried, but there wasn’t enough lead-time after they realized what was happening. Read the accounts excerpted in my above post. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/13 "2004-10-17T21:26:01Z")
> [@](#): > > For the people of western Tennessee, it is about race and old wounds. Hart’s campaign has stirred anger and shame in towns where blacks and whites live apart. I really doubt that. I imagination that it has stirred up more indignation than anything else. This was the district where I grew up. When the towns have a few hundred people, you don’t live so much “apart” as in clumps. Even before integration, there were friendships. People of color allowed me into their homes in the 1950’s and that’s as far back as I can remember visiting anyone. That district has been held by a Democrat for as long as I can remember. (I don’t know what Davy Crockett’s political affiliation was, but he was once the Congressman.) There are always _some_ who will serously support ideas such as his. But he will get more votes than that just because some people will mistakenly vote for straight ticket without knowing much about him. So don’t let the number of votes he gets mislead you. The integration of schools has gone well in most of that district, especially in the rural areas, and there is a more unified nature to the communities. What does it say about our society? I’m just pleased that the Republicans aren’t selling out to have his vote in Congress. It’s also a reminder that Southerners aren’t _all_ Republicans. Thus, stereotypes aren’t very useful. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/14 "2004-10-17T21:27:59Z")
American society is built upon a foundation of useful lies and myths. They are derived from a liberal vision of an ideal world, not the world as it is. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/15 "2004-10-17T21:30:35Z")
> [@mks57](#): > > American society is built upon a foundation of useful lies and myths. They are derived from a liberal vision of an ideal world, not the world as it is. 😕 How does that relate to this discussion? Are you suggesting that Hart’s racial theories are actually correct, and the idea of racial equality is one of those “useful lies”? If not, what are you saying? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/16 "2004-10-18T00:39:44Z")
Y’know, the part about how the local media just plain ignored the local Republican Party’s problem until the very end, combined with the apparent willingness at the start to just let the election happen uncontested _at all_, is just astonishing to me. Heck even when I lived in Baltimore the Republicans bothered to put up _someone_ as a figurehead candidate. It reflects open democracy and opportunity and what have you, but cases such as these are an argument in favor of the sort of system we have here, where to run in the primary you need petitions adding up _to a determined percent of the total votes in the prior election_ to the office. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/17 "2004-10-18T01:58:36Z")
Does anyone know how this Hart guy is running in the polls? We In Illinois have our own nutcase running for the US Senate, Alan Keyes. I am proud to say that he isn’t cracking 20% in the pre-election polling against Obama. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/18 "2004-10-18T02:05:48Z")
> [@Frostillicus](#): > > Does anyone know how this Hart guy is running in the polls? We In Illinois have our own nutcase running for the US Senate, Alan Keyes. I am proud to say that he isn’t cracking 20% in the pre-election polling against Obama. I’ve seen no actual poll figures, but all the press coverage seems to agree that Hart has very little support and no chance of winning. I’m still waiting for **mks57** to come back and explicate that seemingly irrelevant (but possibly relevant in a very ugly way) post. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/19 "2004-10-18T02:29:32Z")
There’s a small but growing movement of academic racialists who do research, and publish in books and academic journals in support of racialist eugenics. People like Michael Levin, Kevin McDonald, Phillippe Rushton, Jared Taylor, Dinesh D’Souza, Richard Lynne, etc. Their books are in most big college libraries, and their work gets published in respectable academic journals. Murray’s and Herrenstein’s _The Bell Curve_ was the first big media breakout to use some of this research as the basis for its arguments. The racialists have a lot of private sympathizers with their beliefs, people who are afraid to go public for fear of career damage or public disapproval. As long as the US remains a relatively stable, prosperous place, the racialists will only get the open support of a disgruntled minority. Their proposals - ending the Civil Rights Act, renewing the bans on interracial marriage, returning to Jim Crow, would be disasterous to US business and political interests, so no mainstream political organization will associate with them. People with these beliefs could come to power in the event of a large scale economic or political upheaval. As we’ve seen in the former Yugoslavia, it’s easy to revert to tribalism in times of crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Tenar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703/20 "2004-10-18T02:48:48Z")
> [@Leonard](#): > > There is actually a part of town known as ‘Klan Kountry.’ At least there’s no sign advertising it anymore. It disappeared just a few years ago. Ironically enough, that part of town is the absolute trashiest part. _Much_ worse than the traditionally black part of town. I wouldn’t call that ironic at all. Resentment is commonly associated with racism. White people from the “trashiest” (by which I assume you mean poorest and most rundown) parts of town would be the ones I would most expect to denigrate anyone who had the temerity to do better than them. If they resented more accomplished white people, they’d have to take a look at their own lives and see what might be lacking in themselves. Hating people based on race is **much** easier. As I used to say about my skinhead nephew-in-law (or would that be “step-nephew”?), it was sad that the one thing in his life that he was proud of was something that he had no control over whatsoever: his skin color. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-matter-that-a-racial-eugenicist-is-running-for-congress-in-tennessee/269703.md?page=2)