As a native Southerner, I knew perfectly well that "states rights" was a code word for segregation. (This was the era when "forced busing" was still a hot issue.) Jimmy Carter, also a Southerner, knew it as well, and he fairly enough (in his eyes) accused Reagan of racism. He also had a more substantive reason: Reagan's opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But Reagan came from California, and may not have understood what loaded words he was speaking. Possibly, he only thought of it as a stock phrase like "gun control" or "socialized medicine" . . . but we don't really know what was going on in his mind, and it is no slur to say he was appealing to Southern racists, because that was what he was doing.

I do object to treating former presidents like saints and calling any reference to their human failings a slander: This also applies to Carter, who started it all by accusing Reagan of racism. Why blame Krugman?

I'm from California and never understood what these 'loaded words" were all about. State Rights means State Rights, not racism, just the right to organise things localy. Southern strategy meant treating them with the respect due them as fellow americans, not with the condescension typical of the northeast....