Cooter Runs for Congress as 'RAT Under Confederate Flag, Other 'RATs POed

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder chastised the Democratic Party yesterday over the use of Confederate flag imagery by the congressional campaign of Democrat Ben "Cooter" Jones.

In a letter sent to top state party officials, the Democrat expressed alarm that the party has not objected to Jones' use of the flag to try to win over rural voters in his bid to unseat Republican Rep. Eric Cantor.

"Apparently, and now with the full concurrence of the Democratic Party both in Virginia and nationally, the Democratic congressional candidate for the 7th District of Virginia is using his flying of a confederate flag as a campaign strategy," Wilder wrote.

The situation is "of great concern to the broad body of responsible Virginians, especially the over 900,000 Virginians who voted for Governor Warner and Lieutenant Governor Kaine last year," Wilder wrote.

Jones' campaign said the candidate does not fly the flag at his home or his business. Campaign spokesman Ben Tribbett said the flag appears only on an automobile made famous by the 1970s television series "Dukes of Hazzard" that Jones, a former star in the series, uses in his campaign.

State Democratic Party Chairman Lawrence H. Framme III was traveling outside the state and responded to Wilder's letter by e-mail.

"Anyone who takes time to examine his [Jones'] record will find he has been a committed supporter of civil rights since the time of the freedom marches in the 1960s and is a lifetime member of the NAACP," Framme wrote.

Wilder said in an interview that the use of the flag in a political campaign is a slap in the face of black voters.

"All my political life and legislative life, I have been railing against this very thing," said Wilder, who ordered Confederate flag patches stripped off the uniforms of the Virginia Air National Guard after he took office in 1990.

"Without the people who are offended by this, where would the Democratic Party be? There has to be some recognition by the party leadership that they can't be involved in kowtowing to these subliminal messages," Wilder said.

Wilder's letter came a day after a Jones fund-raising luncheon in Richmond at which Republicans distributed pamphlets noting Jones' use of Confederate icons in appealing to white, rural voters who typically vote Republican.

Wilder is not the only Democrat to differ with Jones on the use of the Confederate battle flag.

Gov. Mark R. Warner has endorsed Jones and spoken at his fund-raiser, but does not share his affection for things Confederate.

"The governor and Mr. Jones have agreed to disagree about the appropriate commemoration of Southern heritage," said Ellen Qualls, Warner's press secretary.

Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, former mayor of Richmond, said he also has concerns about the message the flag sends, even when no offense is intended.

Jones portrayed Cooter Davenport, the good ol' boy mechanic in the "Dukes of Hazzard." Among his campaign props has been the General Lee, the orange hot rod with the Confederate flag painted on its roof that the Duke boys drove in the show.

This little spat is just too funny for words.

Letters fly in flag dispute
Framme, Wilder spar over Jones

BY TYLER WHITLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 21, 2002

The chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia suggested yesterday that former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder was whistling Dixie when he criticized congressional candidate Ben "Cooter" Jones for using Confederate symbols in his campaign.

In a letter to Wilder, Lawrence H. Framme III noted that Wilder was photographed campaigning in front of the Confederate flag when he ran for lieutenant governor in 1985. The photograph became the cover of a book about Wilder.

"I recall you standing to salute the Confederate battle flag three years ago as you passed under it as it was displayed over the Richmond Canal Walk," Framme said in the letter.

Jones, who played Cooter on "The Dukes of Hazzard" television show, is running as a Democrat against incumbent Republican Eric I. Cantor in the 7th congressional district.

In the television show, Cooter Davenport was a garage mechanic who worked on a car named the General Lee, which had the battle flag painted on it.

Jones has been driving the car with the flag symbol about the district to attract attention to his uphill campaign against the better-financed Cantor.

"Apparently, and now with the full concurrence of the Democratic Party, both in Virginia and nationally, the Democratic congressional candidate for the 7th District of Virginia is using his flying of a confederate flag as campaign strategy," Wilder wrote in a letter to party officials Thursday.

Cantor raised the issue about the flag in a flier distributed this week.

Although Wilder was elected as a Democrat, many Democrats feel he seceded years ago from the party.

Framme, who served as secretary of economic development when Wilder was governor, noted that Wilder, during his 1985 campaign, "advertised heavily on reruns of 'The Dukes of Hazzard.'"

He recalled that Wilder's campaign strategist, Paul Goldman, was quoted in a book about Wilder that advertising on the show was a conscious decision made to reach a certain type of voter.

"Knowing your deep commitment to civil rights, I am confident that you would not have placed paid advertising on 'Dukes of Hazzard' if you believed its constant display of the Confederate battle flag on an automobile was an affront to any voters, particularly African-Americans," Framme wrote.

Wilder, governor from 1990 to 1994, is the only elected black governor in American history.

Framme said use of the flag as a symbol of racism is "abhorrent to all Democrats and a significant portion of other voters."

But legitimate groups can use the flag to celebrate their Southern heritage in ways that condemn racism, he added.

Framme defended Jones as a former congressmen who has been a committed civil rights supporter since the time of the freedom marches.

Reached by telephone, Framme said he thought his letter was "laudatory" of Wilder and his accomplishments. In his letter to Wilder he said he thought he should respond because Cantor had raised the issue as a political attack on Jones.

Goldman, speaking on behalf of Wilder, said Framme, "just doesn't get the sensitivity of the issue."

He said Wilder, Gov. Mark R. Warner and Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine have condemned Jones' use of the flag.

"It's a campaign ploy to send a subliminal message," Goldman said.

Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vametro/MGBTL83VC6D.html

And they're still fussing about the logo on the license plates:

Rehearing of flag-logo case denied
License-tag issue divides court

BY TOM CAMPBELL
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 21, 2002

The federal appeals court in Richmond decided yesterday against a full review of the case that decided the Sons of Confederate Veterans license-plate question.

In April, a three-judge panel affirmed a lower court's ruling that the state is required under the First Amendment to issue license plates bearing the SCV's Confederate battle-flag logo.

Yesterday, judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 6-5 to deny a request for a rehearing by the full court. That request came from one or more of the judges - neither the SCV nor the state continued the appeal after the three-judge panel ruled.

The General Assembly approved issuing a special SCV license plate, as it has for other groups, but it said the plate could not bear the controversial logo. No other group's plates were restricted like that.

Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, one of five judges who wrote opinions in yesterday's decision, said most Virginians have no wish to display a Confederate logo on their license plates.

"The vast majority of Virginians recognize the sad paradox of Confederate history - namely, that individual Southerners, so many good and decent in themselves, swore allegiance to a cause that thankfully was lost, and to practices that no society should have sought to defend," Wilkinson wrote. "But the First Amendment was not written for the vast majority of Virginians. It belongs to a single minority of one."

Wilkinson said he voted against a rehearing because what the General Assembly did "seems to me to violate basic First Amendment principles. . . . When a legislative majority singles out a minority viewpoint in such pointed fashion, free-speech values cannot help but be implicated. And it is as a free-speech case, not as a Confederate flag case, that this appeal must be resolved."

Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, who voted to rehear the case, wrote that the state owns and controls license plates and "must be authorized to regulate the content of speech on them."

The state action, he said, "does not abridge anyone's speech. Those who wish to display the Confederate flag logo, even on their motor vehicles, remain free to do so. They are merely deprived of the right to demand that the commonwealth of Virginia endorse their message by issuing license plates containing that logo."

Niemeyer said that by denying a rehearing, "we miss an important opportunity to air this issue before the entire court and to provide the Supreme Court with a reasoned discussion of the issue."

Wilkinson, H. Emory Widener Jr., William W. Wilkins Jr., J. Michael Luttig, Karen J. Williams and William B. Traxler Jr. voted against a rehearing. Niemeyer, M. Blane Michael, Diana Gribbon Motz, Robert B. King and Roger L. Gregory voted for a rehearing.

Gregory, Luttig and Williams also wrote separate opinions yesterday.

Contact Tom Campbell at (804) 649-6416 or tcampbell@timesdispatch.com

http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vametro/MGBKM33VC6D.html

Wilder's Flag Claim Rebutted

RICHMOND, (AP) - The chairman of the state Democratic Party sent an open letter Friday to former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder rebutting Wilder's public criticism of a Democratic congressional candidate's campaign use of Confederate imagery.

Party Chairman Lawrence H. Framme III said in his 1,020-word response to Wilder that Ben Jones, who starred in "The Dukes of Hazzard" television series, has no racist motive in using the show's famous "General Lee" hot rod with a Confederate flag painted on its roof.

Framme also noted that Wilder, a Democrat and the nation's first elected black governor, conspicuously scheduled campaign ads to air during "The Dukes of Hazzard" reruns in his successful 1985 race for lieutenant governor.

"Knowing your deep commitment to civil rights, I am confident that you would not have placed paid advertising on 'Dukes of Hazzard' (reruns) if you believed its constant display of the Confederate Battle Flag on an automobile was an affront to any voters, particularly African-Americans," Framme wrote in the letter, which the party provided to reporters.

Telephone calls to Wilder's office and home went unanswered late Friday afternoon.

Wilder, in his own open letter to Framme on Thursday, criticized Jones' use of the Confederate flag to attract white voters in the rural and suburban 7th District _ where he's challenging Republican incumbent Eric Cantor _ and voiced his dismay that the party was not denouncing it.

In an interview, Wilder said the use of the flag was a slap in the face to black voters, a vital Democratic constituency, and said party leaders "can't be involved in kowtowing to these subliminal messages."

Framme responded Friday that the Confederate flag is "a historic symbol that means different things to different people," and lamented that hate groups have hijacked it as a symbol of racism and bigotry.

"Legitimate groups celebrating their Southern heritage in ways that condemn racism, but extol universal virtues such as gentility, truth and honor use it," Framme wrote.

He burnished his point by noting that in the June 1999 dedication for downtown Richmond's historical Canal Walk, Wilder stood and saluted a Confederate flag draped on the side of a foot bridge as the small boat carrying him along the canal passed beneath it.

"You rightly noted at that time that there was 'enough room on (the) wall' for a Confederate symbol that is part of Virginia history," Framme noted. Wilder's comments, however, were directed at a mural of Gen. Robert E. Lee on the large, concrete flood wall hundreds of feet away which shields the Canal Walk from the James River.

Jones' portrayal of the genial, down-home mechanic Cooter Davenport on "The Dukes of Hazzard" helped him win two terms in Congress from Georgia a decade ago. He said that invoking his background to appeal to rural voters is in no way racist.

"We're not trying to refight the war. We're just proud of our Southern heritage. We're NASCAR Democrats," he said.

Framme wrote to Wilder: "He (Jones) is a lifetime member of the NAACP. Like you, Ben condemns bigotry and racism and has fought against it throughout his public life. Also like you, Ben embodies the American dream."

The state's two top elected Democrats, Gov. Mark R. Warner and Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, have disavowed the use of Confederate imagery in campaigns.

"Ben and I just agree to disagree on the issue of the Confederate flag," Warner, who has endorsed Jones, said Friday.

The Confederate flag debate is dangerous for Democrats, said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato. "Any short-term gain by Ben is more than offset by the danger of alienating their absolutely essential base vote," Sabato said. "Without the 80 percent to 90 percent vote from African-Americans, the Democrats wouldn't even be in the ball park, nationally or in Virginia."

Democrats should also realize that although Wilder, the grandson of slaves, won over Virginia's overwhelmingly conservative electorate in his 1989 election as governor, "he's in a far different place than he was in the mid-1980s," Sabato said.

"Doug Wilder is genuinely upset, as he has been on a number of occasions, about the Confederate flag," he said. "He's achieved his place in history and is a free spirit. He's going to say exactly what's on his mind."

This story can be found at:

http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/localupdates/MGBFJL6YC6D.html

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