Ronald Reagan began his Presidential bid by speaking about "states rights" in the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. The town is famous for the civil rights workers slain there in 1964.
The use of that town and those terms are morally repugnant to me. I'm shocked that Obama does not know this. Here's the wikipedia site's listing of the city, which includes, of course, everything I've mentioned here.
I think it is a significant thing that Obama chose Reagan to highlight as an example of bipartisanship, change, appeal, or whatever point he was making.
The real Reagan record is repulsive. It was disgusting and criminal to Latin America, it almost broke as many laws as Bush has, it was cruel to the American worker (NAFTA was a Reagan/Bush plan, btw, Clinton picked it up and pushed it) it was based in ideology that sought negative results, etc, etc.
Obama may have been sending out "dog-whistle" politics, I don't know. I would like him to explain himself, and in doing so, give a definitive repudiation of Reagan's anti-progressive legacy.