Democratic Imbroglio (The Confederate Flap: So Long, Howard & Hello, Hillary?)

The Richmond [VA] Times-Dispatch ^ | November 9, 2003 | Ross Mackenzie

[quidnunc]

Howard Dean really put his mouth in it. The incident may mean he has kissed his sweet Democratic nomination good-bye.

Dean said — he has said the same thing several times since February — he still wants to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pick-up trucks. His most recent mouthing led to ridiculous responses by his fellow Democratic wannabes. Richard Gephardt said he doesn't want to be the candidate "for guys with Confederate flags" in their pickups but "for guys with American flags." John Kerry, implicitly tying the Confederate flag issue to race and guns, said, "I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA."

Al Sharpton dismissed Dean as sounding more like "Stonewall Jackson than Jesse Jackson," adding Dean is "insensitive" and "too arrogant to say 'I'm wrong.'" John Edwards, indignant and almost in tears, joined Sharpton in demanding Dean apologize — and added: "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need."

Initially, Dean dug in. "I was not wrong, John Edwards!" he said. Later, uncertain how to deal with such confrontational rabbits, he sought counsel from the sage Jimmy Carter. Ultimately Dean said, "I started this discussion in a clumsy way" and "I deeply regret the pain that I may have caused."

Dean is no dummy.

He obviously understands the Republicanization of the formerly Democratic South during the past decades. He meant by his remark that to strengthen themselves nationally the Democrats must broaden their appeal to precisely the Southern whites who have left the Democratic Party in droves. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats," Dean said along the way. "I make no apology for reaching out to poor white people."

Yet he employed the wrong symbol and slipped. Up there in the Vermontian provinces, Howard Dean may have missed that rightly or wrongly the Confederate flag has been politicized — ideologized — as a symbol of white hatred of African-Americans. Its display on public property is absolutely improper. But its display on private property (even pickups) — indeed, its very mention — roils the domestic sea, as repeated scenes in Richmond amply testify.

And politically, the flag is a killer. Last year Democrat Ben "Cooter" Jones, of "Dukes of Hazzard" television fame, in his congressional campaign for Virginia's 7th District seat, employed the "General Lee" Dodge Charger from the TV show — complete with Confederate flag painted on the roof — as a prop. He said: "I do fly [the Confederate] flag" and "I'm not going to take it down." He lost with hardly more than 30 percent of the vote in a two-man race.

The South has left the Democratic column, no question.

-snip-

[GeronL]

Now don't go mentioning Hillary! You scare people! =o)

[GeronL]

If I had money I'd buy one of those missile silo homes!

[Buck W.]

What is the deadline for candidates to announce?

[MJY1288]

Howard Dean is a typical New England Liberal, he insulted the entire south with his comments and he doesn't even realize it, his weak apology after that circle jerk of a debate hosted by CNN last week was proof of just how ignorant Howard Dean is. His way of apologizing was to say southerners need to think about more than just Guns, God and Gays.

What a frickin moron

[Lancey Howard]

The South has left the Democratic column, no question.

Well, duh, Ross.
The only places that are still in the Democrat column are the nation's parasite nests (cities). Nothing new here. The famous blue-red county-by-county post-election map spells it out pretty clearly.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

When Dean speaks glowingly of Muslims and bashes Southerners, we have a real problem.

I keep picturing Hillary joining the race and fraudulently running a campaign of a moderate to sway moderate Dems.

[MJY1288]

Here is what Hillary needs to worry about if she decides to run.... She doesn't need to worry about who consistantly shows up at the polls and votes DEM, they will vote for her. She needs to worry about the other 100 million people who don't usually vote....... She might excite the democrat base, but if she runs and gets the nomination, she will stir up those who normally don't vote to come out in droves against her

[cmotormac44]

Then we don't have to worry about her election--there sure 'ain't' enough "moderate" demonrats in the nation to pull that off

[At _War_With_Liberals]

The leftists are in her back pocket already.

I am really paranoid about Hillary.

[DeFault User]

The South's abandonment of the national Democrats flowed naturally from the Democrats' abandonment of the South. The process of abandonment may have begun with race, but the parting of ways has not been race-driven for years. As Dean knows, the Democrats cannot win nationally by writing off the South, but he erred perhaps irretrievably in using a symbol now racially infused.

Writing off the South? Dean's comments just highlight it with a big yellow marker.

John Edwards thought he could vote left, please the Dem powerbase and then call on a Southern image to pull it all together. It's not working too well for the Breck Girl.

None of them is as politically savvy as Bubba, who at least pretended to be "moderate-'slightly conservative'" to keep his Southern base.

[CIBGUY]

The American people wouldn't tolerate Hillary as the Commander In Chief, something that a lot of folks are forgetting.

[MJY1288]

Just wait until Zell Miller starts campaigning for George W. Bush, as he said he would if asked :-)

Dean's comments have just about guaranteed the South to GWB if Howard Dean wins the nomination, and it appears he will. The rest of the country is not going to cozy up to a guy who wants to take away the tax cuts and cut and run in Iraq, it's not what most Americans stand for and most democrat voters, who are not blinded with hatred for Bush, will agree

[ladyinred]

This flag thing is ludicrous. It is a part of history, demonized by the PC left. Sickening to say the least.

[MJY1288]

The best part is.... It's Howard Dean who is under attack for his Confederate Flag remarks, Who wooda ever thunk it ;-)

When the Democrats are engaged in a blood bath among themselves, It's a beautiful thing to witness :-)

[clee1]

There is no deadline, per se.

At this stage of the game, the 10 DemoCrap nominee candidates are all gathering delegates to the nominating convention. Each state has different rules/methods of doing this. Some states require the delegates to pledge their support to the person that wins the state primary/caucus - most do not.

The delegates can (for the most part) cast their nominating vote for whomever they please; even a person not "running" for nomination. This is called a convention draft.

Hitlery could still wind up as the demonCrap nominee.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

But it's a slur on the South to suggest the reason is race - a slur implicit in all the Confederate flag business. Yes, both parties have their racists. Yet the reasons for the Republicanization of the South have less to do with race than with the values the national Democratic Party and growing numbers of Southerners of both races clearly do not share.

The South exalts civility, community, and place. There's also, among many, a strong strain of leave-us-alone and let-us-be.

Money quote, from the article. :)

[HHFi]

Absolutely. Nobody cared at all about the Confederate flag except Civil War buffs and Lynyrd Skynyrd fans until the NAACP needed to gin up an issue to take its rapidly-dwindling membership's minds off the fact that their leader had embezzled all their money. The whole organization had become a useless anachronism, riddled with corruption, unwilling and unable to address any real problems of modern day African-Americans. They needed a McGuffin to distract everyone, and the Confederate flag was it.

They've now boosted their membership, brought the money and PR rolling back in, and demonized a whole group of Americans who were guilty of nothing more than being proud of their ancestors. And they still haven't done one damn thing about addressing any real problems of Black America. If they'd expend a fraction of the energy they waste demonizing the Confederate flag on real issues, like lousy schools, gangs or drugs, they might actually help their own people. But that's not what the NAACP is about. They're the National Association for the Advancement of their own selfish interests.

[CIBGUY]

You're right on target! The NAACP, along with other Black racist groups is required to exploit the ignorance of those of their own race who are continually told by their own black leaders that they can't make it on their own and that they have to rely on the al Sharptons of the world to simply exist. The NAACP certainly does not want to see the Negro gain acceptance in American society, because if they did there wouild be no need for the NAACP.

[Northern Yankee]

Exactly!

Hellary will bring people out in droves to slam her down once and for all.

[Jackie222]

Some folks in our state (VA) fly the flag in their front yards and on their cars and they are blacks. Strange how it does not mean 'pain' to them. They seem to be proud of it. Go figure.......

[samtheman]

I hope Hitlery is the dimowit nominee. To paraphrase Yoda:

Meet her doom, she will.

[cajun-jack]

dean called in to the Paul Gallo radio show in Jackson, Ms one day last week. I heard his interview on FM 97.3 Super talk MS...Gallo had him dancing like a duck on a hot asphalt road about the flag issue.

Gallo tried to explain to him that the south did not like being stereotyped as a bunch of tobacco chewing, pickup driving rednecks any more than any other group of citizens like being stereotyped as this or that. Dean was apologizing and blathering especially when Mr. Gallo stated "I drive a pickup truck but there are no gun racks in the back window and there is no confederate flag there either."

It really was quite funny to listen to dean..he apologized for 3 or 4 things he said and i couldn't help but think, yeah, he says he's sorry here in Jackson on the radio, but it will probably never be heard anywhere else.

[DugwayDuke]

"She might excite the democrat base, but if she runs and gets the nomination, she will stir up those who normally don't vote to come out in droves against her"

But, OTOH, millions of women will vote for her on the basis of "it's time a woman was president."

[maica]

In my visits to libraries for genealogical research I see lots of people with African ancestry researching their family's history in America. Black Americans belong to the DAR and other pedigree-based organizations. Somehow I don't think that they will be too appreciative of the behavior of Kweise, Al, Jesse, and their cronies.

[Ditto]

This flag thing is ludicrous. It is a part of history, demonized by the PC left. Sickening to say the least.

Its a fund raiser for the NAACP and other race pimps that makes them appear to be doing something while in reality they do nothing but help themselves to as much of the cash as they can stuff in their pockets. They will harp on the reb flag instead of fighting drug abuse, failed schools, crime and out-of-wedlock birth in the black communities that are destroying more blacks than Sheets Byrd and his Klan buddies ever dreamed of.

[Luke21]

Southerners are no fools. They saw thru Ben Jones and Howard Dean's smarmy patronizations. The only flag those two truly recognize has the hammer and sickle on it.

[Jim Noble]

What is the deadline for candidates to announce?

When did Lautenberg announce?

When did Mondale announce?

This whole farce, directed by Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe, is designed to produce a non-viable candidate.

Following the NJSC precedent (never overruled) that the People are entitled to a competitive election between a Republican and a Democrat, Hillary will replace whoever between 10/2 and 10/16/04.

[aomagrat]

And politically, the flag is a killer.

Yes it is. Governors in South Carolina and Georgia lost re-election because they took down the flag.

[HostileTerritory]

You nailed it. That's why all this speculation about a Hillary! surprise is so pointless and tiresome. Yet it comes up day after day after day...

[GOPJ]

Are Dean's numbers up? Did every liberal media person play this story to the hilt? Wonder why?

Democrats know how to whip blacks and still get their votes. Racist code? Sister Soulja? Play'em for fools.

[Jim Noble]

The American people wouldn't tolerate Hillary as the Commander In Chief, something that a lot of folks are forgetting.

What is your understanding of how she won the NY Senate race? (hint: she ran a million votes behind Gore in NYC and Buffalo).

[HostileTerritory]

She ran an excellent campaign in a state that was receptive to her views and her party's views. Her opponent hit some wrong notes. She actually benefited from being a carpetbagger because she got a free pass on the upstate v. the city v. the suburbs splits that normally paralyze Democrats in New York. Bush was an unappealing candidate in New York in 2000. So she won by a big margin while Gore was winning in a blowout.

I don't think any of this would help her in a national race. And she's on the record a thousand times saying that she won't run before her first term of Senate is up. She's obviously positioning herself to run for President in '08 after Bush is term-limited out.

The facts in the second paragraph should be obvious to everyone on the Internet who is convinced that Hillary has a secret plan to usurp the Democratic nomination in '04 and I'm astounded people still feel the need to pimp their conspiracy theories. She doesn't want the nomination this year and the Democrats don't want her either. She is many things as a politician, but stupid and impatient are not among them.

[HostileTerritory]

Regarding your "hint", your numbers for Hillary! v. Gore in New York State are way off. Check out the real figures here:

http://www.elections.state.ny.us/elections/2000/wpres2000.pdf
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/elections/2000/wussen2000.pdf

Hillary! matched Gore's performance in Buffalo (Erie County) and fell only 100,000 votes short in New York City.

[x]

Ben Jones was a carpetbagger, wasn't he? Elected twice to Congress from Georgia. It's hardly likely that Virginians would take to him very well.

Hillary Clinton has probably already written off 2004 as a Republican year. She'll be back in 2008. Democrats will be hungrier for victory then, and the Dean-Kerry wing of the party discredited. Democrats will want someone stronger in other parts of the country. It's not clear, though, that she's the ticket. Too many bad memories.

I don't think that Mackenzie quite gets the political timetable. My suspicion is that you'd have to start early to put together a political campaign. It looks like it's only in the movies that a candidate can jump in at the last minute and make a big splash. Perot, did, but as a third party candidate, with much money, no primaries and a different schedule from the major parties. Robert Kennedy did. Maybe Eisenhower or Willkie as well. But that's all a long time ago -- before the primary system became the major factor in choosing candidates.

Parties have run before in elections which looked lost to begin with. Some candidates have had to write off whole sections of the country, without some deus ex machina or divine intervention. It won't happen this time, either, though I've got my fingers crossed.

[CIBGUY]

Hillary carried the population areas in the southern part of the state, New York City, Suffolk Country etc. These are the big welfare areas, normally associated with Democrats. It was enough to offset her unpopularirty in the rest of the state.
Hillary probably won't run for President. Rudy G. is probably going to be a candidate for the NY Senate seat and she's got to beef up hjer base for that one. But you never know...