Sanford rejects exclusive southern primary for its efforts to distinguish itself the nation
Sanford opposes Carter's call for a southwide primary because it would cast the South as exceptional instead of as an advancing region.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Terry Sanford, [date unknown]. Interview A-0140. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACK BASS:
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What do you think of Jimmy Carter's suggestion for a southwide
presidential primary? In part he said that this would give the South a
real sense of power at the national convention.
- TERRY SANFORD:
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I think it'd be totally disastrous.
- JACK BASS:
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Why?
- TERRY SANFORD:
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Because I think primaries, generally, are utterly disastrous. And I think
a regional one would let all the base elements come out. I think it
would cast the South in a role of still being a region apart, which I've
been spending most of my life trying to make it either a leading region
or a region in a construction sense, and not a region of . . . apart
from the mainstream of the nation. And it's just contrary to my total
philosophy of where the South ought to be.
