Howard Dean: The Candidate for Confederate Flags and Assault Weapons

Right...as if we actually BATHE in the south...it takes hard work to smell like a redneck!

 

Eh, I wasn't offended by what Dean said, at all. He just said he wanted to reach out to people who don't normally vote Democrat.

Definitely a political miscue, though.

 

I'm not sure I'd go that far. He made a political gaffe but, ironically enough, the comment may actually HELP him in the South.

It's not like he endorsed the Confederacy; he just said he wanted to reach a constituency that Democrats don't usually reach. I have absolutely no problem with what he said.

But I can see how people would be bent out shape over it, though.

 

His apology should now make his comment a nonissue.

 

I can see what you're saying, but I personally see his initial reaction as more part and parcel of his attack style of debate. Apology is anathema to such a debate style at first blush. Couple that with the fact that he wasn't even in a position to apologize for something he said as opposed to the possible interpretation some might make of his comments, and I can see how time could have added perspective. I can also see your interpretation being accurate.


But, more to the point, T_J, I am heartened that you have joined our side in the war debate, re: all the 'mis-statements' about reconstituted nukes, WMDs, 9-11,etc. We have always said that, for those who mainatain that they were mistakes, the fact that months went by without correction or apology sort of made it apparent that they weren't anything of the kind. Glad to see that you even think a day makes a difference, so clearly when it comes to months, you're on board.

 

Agreed.

 

It was a political mistake which ultimately merited a political response. What exactly is surprising about that? Never mind the fact that the Edwards, Gephardt and Kerry campaigns are now working together to try and block the service union endorsement. Or that Gephardt and Kerry are on record as having coordinated other attacks in the past. Or that Sharpton's so pissed at Jesse Jr. that he's resorted to calling Dean 'anti-Black.' Or that Kucinich, realizing that Dean's got his base, is focusing all his energy on Dean. Or that Lieberman's been trying to poke holes in all things Dean for months now. Dean is the front-runner, but he has zero support from the party bosses. As such, he takes not only the most desperate attacks from virtually every other candidate on a daily basis, but also from the party and the DLC. I think he can be forgiven for 'apologizing' on his terms rather than theirs. They didn't care about the issue itself -- only the opportunity it afforded them. He took that away from them by making the statement on his own terms -- by apologizing to the people who were offended rather than to Sharpton and Edwards, et al. The American people say they want a strong leader who speaks his mind rather than pandering or employing old school slick politicking. That is Dean. As such, there are going to be some bumps in the road. Considering the dynamics of the race there have been incredibly few though, and he's yet to compromise any core belief in the interest of winning. That's more than can be said for anyone else running for president right now (including, most especially, Bush). His having admitted error only a few days after the initial statement also beats hell out of how long it's taking Bush or Gephardt or Kerry or Edwards to admit error on Iraq. This whole thing is one of the bigger smoke screens to come down the pike in this election. And No Worries is right. It's over.

 

These are excellent reasons to apologize, but they *are* political. Without these political pressures, why would Dean apologize?

 

Without them, he wouldn't. His entire mistake was one of awkward wording (sound familiar?). It only had legs as a political issue. He'd spoken of the Confederate flag voter before, it went over incredibly well and went virtually unreported. This time his opponents are scared to death of him, they thought they found a opening and they took it. That's when and how it became an issue. It never was anything but political. And Dean doesn't generally feel the need to apologize because politicians tell him he should. That's where the 24 hour delay came from. In the interim, the story got legs and upset regular folks, so he apologized to them. End of story, much to the chagrin of the others in the race.

 

As usual, the BBS's own Will Saletan puts it far more eloquently than I have, but he's saying the same thing I've been saying all along:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090775/

Confederate Flog
The new bum rap on Howard Dean.
By William Saletan
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2003, at 1:51 AM PT

Stars and bars rise again. The headline coming out of this debate is the pounding Howard Dean took for saying he wants the votes of guys whose trucks sport Confederate flags. It's a bum rap.

For days, Dean's opponents have assailed his flag comment. A few minutes into Tuesday's debate, a questioner told Dean, "I recently read a comment that you made where you said that you wanted to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. When I read that comment, I was extremely offended."

Note the first three words: "I recently read …" The questioner was obviously unaware that Dean has used this line all year. Had the questioner heard Dean's previous speeches, such as the one Dean delivered to the Democratic National Committee in February, he would have known exactly what Dean meant. As Dean put it on that occasion:


I intend to talk about race during this election in the South. The Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us, and I'm going to bring us together. Because you know what? White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too.

I have that speech on videotape. I'm looking at it right now. As Dean delivers the line about Confederate flags, the whole front section of the audience stands and applauds. It's a pretty white crowd, but in slow-motion playback, I can make out three black people in the crowd and two more on the dais, including DNC Vice Chair Lottie Shackelford. Every one of them is standing and applauding. As Dean finishes his speech, a dozen more black spectators rise to join in an ovation. They show no doubt or unease about what Dean meant. He wasn't condoning racism. He was saying that his party shouldn't write off people who share its economic philosophy just because they don't yet share its understanding of civil rights.


Dean's opponents knew what he meant, too. That's why none of them raised a whimper when he used the flag line at the DNC meeting, or when he used it again at the California State Democratic Convention. Why are they pouncing on him now? Because he has become the frontrunner and because in his latest repetition of the line, he shorthanded it. He was answering a reporter's question about whether he was too sympathetic to the National Rifle Association. Here's how Saturday's Des Moines Register reported Dean's answer:


Dean has said 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost the election because he failed to win Southern states, where disaffected Democrats who favor gun owners' rights were reluctant to support him. "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said Friday in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

Nothing in the quote indicates any departure from the rationale Dean has expressed all along: He wants the votes of these people despite their fondness for the Confederate flag, not because of it.

In Tuesday's debate, Dean did a cruddy job of explaining this. But that doesn't excuse the dishonesty of his opponents. Al Sharpton rebuked Dean, saying, "You can't bring a Confederate flag to the table of brotherhood." But if the black people who watched Dean's speech at the DNC meeting had seen no possibility of brotherhood with anyone who displayed that flag, they wouldn't have applauded Dean's statement. Of course they hate the flag. They just refuse to write off the vote of everyone who displays it.

If Sharpton was presumptuous in his representation of blacks, John Edwards was hypocritical in his representation of Southerners. "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do," Edwards told Dean in the debate. "The people that I grew up with, the vast majority of them, they don't drive around with Confederate flags on pickup trucks." The audience of Bostonians applauded. Nobody pointed out that the sentiment Edwards had just expressed was the most common rationale for flaunting the Confederate flag. Nor did Edwards betray any chagrin when moderator Anderson Cooper recalled Edwards' recent comment that Democrats should "reach out to people like Zell Miller," the Democratic senator from Georgia who has just endorsed President Bush for re-election. If Dean's outreach to people with the Confederate flag decals makes him a racist, does Edwards' outreach to Miller make Edwards a Bush man? Or is outreach just part of politics?

Late in Tuesday's debate, Wesley Clark told an instructive story about a homophobic friend.


One of my Army friends came to me. He said, "Sir, I've got a little bit of trouble with your position on gays in the military." I said, "Well, let me explain it to you this way. If you had a son or daughter who was gay, would you love them? And he said, "Well, yes." I said, "Would you want them to have the same rights and the same opportunities in life as everybody else?" And he looked at me and he said, "Now I understand why you're saying what you're saying." We need to do a lot better job in communicating in this society and crossing barriers.

That's how outreach works. You don't spurn people who disagree with you, even on issues of segregation and discrimination. You communicate. You cross barriers. It's a good way to win elections—and to change the world.

 

Dean has said 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost the election because he failed to win Southern states

Actually it was just one Southern state, Gore's home state of Tennessee.

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.
Yep, poor white folk heya in thu south still crave for them colored folk to operate our oxen, to plow are fields, and pick are cotton. Yep, we's juss a waitin for the day to raise are Confederate Flag back up the 'ole windmill. I've gots 100 acres juss a waitin, as do my famulee members, all 30 of 'em here in ma barn.
Uhhyuck uhhyuck!