Reply #4: If I may quote that op-ed: [View All]

[Padraig18]

"...And in Massachusetts, at a debate of Democratic candidates for president, an indirect reference to the Confederate flag became an issue for others to pounce on former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a leading candidate.

Dean's offense: He said in an appropriate context that he wanted to be a Democratic candidate who could appeal to white Southern guys with Confederate flags on their trucks -- a sociographic group heavily Republican in the South these days.

"We need to talk to white Southern workers about how they vote, because when white people and black people and brown people vote together in this country, that's the only time that we make social progress, and they need to come back to the Democratic Party," Dean said.

Dean compounded the offense against the politically correct by refusing in the debate to cravenly apologize to the likes of Al Sharpton, another candidate and a racial demagogue. However, after a couple of days of media attention to this nonissue, Dean threw in the towel and issued a statement saying he's sorry for any "pain" he has caused.

This unhappy episode casts little credit on the Democratic field.

We believe Dean was unfairly pilloried for what is a very sound political instinct. Maybe there's less of a Bubba vote than there used to be, but many remain. If the Democrats are to remain competitive in the South, they can't afford to write off the Bubbas. Just as the GOP cannot afford to write off black voters.

And to be the target of Sharpton's jabs may be unpleasant, but it's better than agreeing with a notorious liar -- as so many of Sharpton's fellow candidates did." (emphasis mine)

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/111103/opi_edi001.shtml