In order to sell the Southern Strategy mythology you would have to explain how Nixon won a 49 state landslide in 1972. 
Were 49 of 50 states inhabited by retrograde bigots?

In reality clever Republican strategists were able to associate their opposition with unsightly mobs of useful idiots, burning American flags, spitting on returning soldiers, displaying Che posters, and rioting in the streets. Many of these counterculture miscreants have now morphed into the 21st century Democrat mainstream. 

The dramatic shift in partisan allegiances had nothing to do with race – this post factum revisionist narrative was drafted years later. 
(Continued….)