TPM got an e-mail from the NRSC that defends Rand Paul by "by pointing out that it wasn't Republicans who were the most vocal opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act when it was in Congress." Of course, they conveniently ignore the fall-out from the passage of the CRA:
The true history of the Civil Rights act, according to Princeton university Sean Wilentz, is not exactly worthy of glib emails from the GOP.
"Everybody knows that in 1964, a proud southern Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson, pushed hard to secure the Civil Rights Bill, with the aid of a coalition of northern Democrats and Republicans," Wilentz said. "This sent the defeated segregationist Southern Democrats (led by Strom Thurmond) fleeing into the Republican Party, where its remnants, along with a younger generation of extremist conservative white southerners, including Rand Paul, still reside."
...
Wilentz said that any suggestion that Democrats talking about the Civil Rights act is somehow hypocritical is pretty much a complete rejection of the actual facts -- and the political landscape at the time.
"In many ways, the 1964 Act defined the modern political parties -- with the Republicans becoming the heirs to the traditions of the Confederacy and Jim Crow, and the Democrats embracing the tradition of Abraham Lincoln," he wrote.
He said that the history of the bill shows that Republicans didn't hold the high ground when it came to supporting Civil Rights.
"Brian Walsh may have forgotten that Lyndon Johnson ran for president in 1964 against a Republican nominee, Barry Goldwater, who repudiated the Civil Rights Act," Wilentz wrote.
Ah, the Republican selective memory.
Please support Rand Paul's Democratic opponent, Jack Conway: he's a good guy, he needs our help, and he can win.