Ol' Howard catches hell -Durham Herald

[Rose Siding]

After catching merry hell from his competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination, Howard Dean apologized Wednesday for "causing pain" when he said the Democratic Party needs the votes of good ol' boys with Confederate flags on their pickups. Our own Sen. John Edwards, who extols his South Carolina origin when it is convenient to do so, came down on the hapless Dean like a gullywasher.

Dean was simply being pragmatic when he said poor white Southerners need to vote for their economic interest, that being Democratic in general and Howard Dean in particular. Of course, it was hard to hear what Dean said, so quickly was he overwhelmed by 130 decibels of howls.

a little more..............

http://www.herald-sun.com/opinion/hsedits/56-410559.html

[StClone]

1. Dean mistep shows he is trying

Clumsily, he tried to reach out to the South, but no real harm IMO. If one section of the country is in lockset to vote Bush, I'll tell who has the problem.

[Eloriel]

2. Some people don't think it was all that clumsily

I'm one of them.

I live in the very rural South. There are a bunch of people in my rural, poor, uneducated county who could definitely hear exactly what Dean said and make perfect sense of it.

They may or may not be racists. They DO know and remember their past (and for lots of them it has less to do with owning slaves than with having been defeated and then unceasingly humiliated by an arrogant North for far too long, which experience kept the whole region poor and bereft -- and humiliated).

They may not understand why African Americans so loathe the flag; but they might if it was properly explained to them.

But first you have to get their attention.

I just heard Joe Scarborough start off his nightly show with this remark embedded in his coverage of the Dean flag flap:

"There are millions of Southerners who vote Republican and feel lousy about it. But that's better than voting for someone who calls you a bigot."

I think ole Joe has a point.

Eloriel