Romney, who admitted that he was not as astute a politician as Nixon, had underestimated white suburbanites’ fear and racism. Nixon had understood it—the government “can’t force blacks into housing,” explained Nixon, “or we’ll have a war.” Nixon was so sure that integration was a losing issue that he urged his staff “to nail every Democratic senator and congressmen to the cause of ‘compulsory integrated housing.’ ” Integration was “political poison.”
