Bill Back, a candidate in next month’s election for the chairmanship of the California Republican Party, has issued a statement apologizing for distributing an article that suggested the country might be better off, in everything from race relations to international affairs to morality, had the South won the Civil War.
Excerpts of the article, e-mailed to party members in the state in a 1999 newsletter produced by Back, were printed Friday in newspaper articles, bringing the specter of the scandal that crippled U.S. Senator Trent Lott to the California GOP.
“I just don’t have any idea what Mr. Back was thinking about when it was sent out,” said Assembly Republican Leader Dave Cox, referring to the article in the newsletter.
At the same time, Cox said that he does not believe Back, currently state GOP vice chairman, is a racist and that he still backs him in the race for the party chairmanship against Duf Sundheim, a Silicon Valley attorney and a more moderate Republican.
In his statement, Back, a conservative Bush ally, said the newsletter, which he distributed when he was the party’s vice chairman for the northern region, was a forum for diverse political opinions. Regarding the controversial article, a reproduced essay written by William S. Lind of the conservative Free Congress Foundation, Back said, “I believe his conclusions and analysis are fundamentally incorrect and he mentioned nothing about how repugnant slavery was and its impact on America.”
But Shannon Reeves of Oakland, state party secretary and the only African-American member of the state GOP executive committee, was skeptical of Back’s explanation, asking why Back didn’t say he disagreed with the article in his editor’s note in the newsletter.
“No one distributes their own official newsletter with materials with which he disagrees,” said Reeves, “unless they refer to the article that they disagree with in the body of their direct comments.”

— Elise Banducci, Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)