<P> Other observers have suggested that the election of President Obama in the 2008 presidential election and subsequent re-election in 2012 signaled the growing irrelevance of the southern strategy - style tactics . Louisiana State University political scientists Wayne Parent, for example, suggested that Obama's ability to get elected without the support of southern states demonstrate that the region was moving from "the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics", while University of Maryland, Baltimore County political scientist Thomas Schaller argued that the Republican party had "marginalized" itself, becoming a "mostly regional party" through a process of Southernization . </P> <P> Scholars generally emphasize the role of racial backlash in the realignment of southern voters . The viewpoint that the electoral realignment of the Republican party due to a race - driven Southern Strategy is also known as the "top - down" viewpoint . Most scholarship and analysts support this top - down viewpoint and claim that the political shift was due primarily to racial issues . The Southern Strategy is generally believed to be the primary force that transformed the "Democratic South into a reliable GOP stronghold in presidential elections". Some historians believe that racial issues took a back seat to a grassroots narrative known as the "suburban strategy". Matthew Lassiter, who along with Shafer and Johnston is a leading proponent of the "suburban strategy" viewpoint, recognizes that "This analysis runs contrary to both the conventional wisdom and a popular strain in the scholarly literature". Glen Feldman, when speaking of the "suburban strategy", states it is "the dissenting--yet rapidly growing--narrative on the topic of southern partisan realignment". </P> <P> Matthew Lassiter says, "A suburban - centered vision reveals that demographic change played a more important role than racial demagoguery in the emergence of a two - party system in the American South ." Lassiter argues that race - based appeals cannot explain the GOP shift in the south while also noting that the real situation is far more complex . </P> <P> Kalk and Tindall separately argue that Nixon's Southern strategy was to find a compromise that on race would take the issue house of politics, allowing conservatives in the South to rally behind his grand plan to reorganize the national government . Kalk and Tindall emphasize the similarity between Nixon's operations and the series of compromises orchestrated by Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877 that ended the battles over Reconstruction and put Hayes in the White House . Kalk says Nixon did end the reform impulse and sowed the seeds for the political rise of white Southerners and the decline of the civil rights movement . </P>

Which statement describes the views of the democratic republican party