Dean's blooper opens national, party wounds

Seattle Times ^ | 11/9/03 | David Broder

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

WASHINGTON - The can of worms that Howard Dean opened with his ill-conceived effort to identify himself as "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" is not one that can be resealed with the words of regret the former Vermont governor belatedly offered. By inadvertently reopening the deepest wound within the nation, the race issue, Dean hurt himself and did a disservice to his party.

He had said similar things several times in the past, without drawing criticism. But with his big fund-raising lead and his accumulating endorsements, his words are now more consequential. When I was with him in Iowa more than a year ago, the line was somewhat different. Then he was promising his outreach would include "the guys driving pickups with gun racks on the back." When his opponents started criticizing the stands that had earned Dean an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association back in Vermont, he switched the description to the flag decal.

His timing could not have been worse, because Democrats were already undergoing traumatic experiences in and about the South. Bob Graham of Florida had just become the fourth Southern senator to opt out of running for re-election next year, creating open seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, all of which could easily fall to the GOP.

Another of the declared Democratic retirees, Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, had just published a book and launched on a round of TV and print interviews in which he blamed the party, its leaders and its presidential candidates for taking a "go to hell" attitude toward the South.

And last Tuesday, even as Dean struggled to extricate his foot from his mouth, two more states, Kentucky and Mississippi, elected Republican governors to succeed Democrats accelerating the Democratic decline in what was once the Solid South.

Link to full article.

[Enterprise]

"By inadvertently reopening the deepest wound within the nation, the race issue, Dean hurt himself and did a disservice to his party."

Hey, I think the lad is doing just fine. He's an outstanding representative of the Donkeys.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

It comes across as saying that 'Southerners are so dumb they've been voting against their own interests, so I'm going to educate them on the error of their ways.' And what makes it worse, it's coming from a Vermont Yankee."

Money quote.