Barnes raps Dean's flag statement

[Feanorcurufinwe]

Last week Sen. John Edwards criticized Gov. Howard Dean for bringing up the Confederate flag in characterizing Southerners. On a campaign stop in Atlanta on Monday, he let one of his key supporters, former Gov. Roy Barnes, send the same message.

Dean's comment that he wants to appeal to voters who have Confederate flag decals on their pickups "shows how little he knows about the South," said Barnes, who noted that he knows something about the subject. Barnes' effort to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag was a key factor in his defeat last year.

"This is a vibrant, progressive part of the nation," said the former governor. "We don't go around waving Confederate flags -- well, not most of us." Barnes called Dean's comment "condescending" and "almost unforgivable."

...

"Where I grew up and where you grew up, if you don't have a job, you don't have a recovery," Edwards said.

In contrast to retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who last week spoke of little but the war in Iraq at a town hall-style meeting at Georgia Tech, Edwards spoke of little but the economy, sticking to his campaign's main theme.

"Children in middle-class families are more likely now to see their parents go into bankruptcy than go into divorce," Edwards said, citing recent statistics.

Edwards also promoted his "College for Everyone" plan, which would tie college tuition to student jobs.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/1103/11edwards.html

[Freddie Stubbs]

1. Roy Barnes certainly is in step with Southern voters

He did quite well at the polls last year.;-)

[tsipple]

3. Yeah, No Kidding!

And I think Mississippi citizens voted something like 70% to keep their flag, right?

[blm]

15. Diebold machines and the Confederate flag issue...yet again.

.

[blitzen]

2. another view from the South (Baton Rouge op-ed, pro-Dean)

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

[Padraig18]

4. If I may quote that op-ed:

"...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

[Feanorcurufinwe]

5. Really misses the point by focusing on Dean's spin and damage control

instead of the actual gaffe that caused the problem.

Responding to questions about his NRA support, Dean said: "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks"

Invoking the Confederate flag in this context may have been as Dean acknowledged insensitive, stereotypical, and a reminder of racial injustice, but to call this amateurish blunder "a very sound political instinct" is laughable.

[Padraig18]

6. In *your* opinion, perhaps.

Quite obviously, a significant portion of America does not agree with you. How are JK's coffers swelling with money, as a result of his obsession with this pseudo-issue? Fairly bursting, are they? /sarcasm off

[Feanorcurufinwe]

7. Dean's poll numbers in Iowa have declined since this happened

so it's not just a matter of my opinion.

And what is your obsession with Kerry? Why bring Kerry into this? It's an article about the Edwards campaign.

[Padraig18]

8. Maybe they have, and maybe they haven't.

It's withing the MOE of the poll. Someone else brought up Kerry, not me, unless your referring to my comment about his coffers.

PS-- How's that strategy working for your guy and sen. Edwards, btw? The checks are just rolling in, I bet...

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. Yeah, I was referring to your comment

when I responded to your comment, lol

Really, if Kerry is no threat to Dean, why your obsession with him? I mean I could understand attacking him if Dean were the underdog and Kerry the frontrunner...

Here is a discussion of comments by Roy Barnes, an Edwards supporter, about Dean's Confederate flag blunder. Yet you felt it necessary to point out that Kerry is in second place in fundraising among the Democratic candidates with 20 million dollars raised through the third quarter, behind Dean's 25 million and ahead of Edwards' 14.5 million. (http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/index.asp) Sounds like you're worried.

[Padraig18]

12. My 'obsession' with Kerry...

... is simply a response to all the Dean-bashing threads started by Kerry supporters. Worried? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! :hi:

[Feanorcurufinwe]

14. Kudos.

[LuminousX]

9. No polling has been done on this comment so the decline could be

attributed to anything.

[eissa]

11. Dead horse!!

We need to get an icon of hysterical people beating a dead horse; it's quite appropriate for this non-issue.

[mikehiggins]

13. How long until this is over?

Three months from now we should have a pretty good idea who is going to be our nominee (not a certainty, but a pretty good idea) unless we wind up with such a spread of delegates that it has to go into the convention.

I, for one, will be happy to see it. I'm aching to get busy working for Anybody, as in ABBA.