William Saletan defends Dean – rips Sharpton & Edwards

[pruner]

Confederate Flog
The new bum rap on Howard Dean

By William Saletan
Posted Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 1:51 AM PT

The headline coming out of this debate is the pounding Howard Dean took for saying he wants the votes of guys who sport confederate flags. It's a bum rap.

<snip>

Dean has said 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost the election because he failed to win Southern states, where disaffected Democrats who favor gun owners' rights were reluctant to support him. "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said Friday in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

Nothing in the quote indicates any departure from the rationale Dean has expressed all along: He wants the votes of these people despite their fondness for the Confederate flag, not because of it.

In Tuesday's debate, Dean did a cruddy job of explaining this. But that doesn't excuse the dishonesty of his opponents. Al Sharpton rebuked Dean, saying, "You can't bring a Confederate flag to the table of brotherhood." But if the black people who watched Dean's speech at the DNC meeting had seen no possibility of brotherhood with anyone who displayed that flag, they wouldn't have applauded Dean's statement. Of course they hate the flag. They just refuse to write off the vote of everyone who displays it.

If Sharpton was presumptuous in his representation of blacks, John Edwards was hypocritical in his representation of southerners. "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do," Edwards told Dean in the debate. "The people that I grew up with, the vast majority of them, they don't drive around with Confederate flags on pickup trucks." The audience of Bostonians applauded. Nobody pointed out that the sentiment Edwards had just expressed was the most common rationale for flaunting the Confederate flag. Nor did Edwards betray any chagrin when moderator Anderson Cooper recalled Edwards' recent comment that Democrats should "reach out to people like Zell Miller," the Democratic senator from Georgia who has just endorsed President Bush for reelection. If Dean's outreach to people with the Confederate flag decals makes him a racist, does Edwards' outreach to Miller make Edwards a Bush man? Or is outreach just part of politics?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090775/

[La_Serpiente]

1. this is going to

rip apart the primaries.

[pruner]

2. I think Kerry, Gerhardt & Edwards have seriously hurt themselves

some of the comments they've made since this first erupted Saturday can come back to haunt them later on… assuming they're in the race much longer.

I really think once Dean opts out of matching funds Edwards & Gephardt cease to be "top-tier" in any respect… Kerry only remains "top tier" if he opts out too.

[w4rma]

18. Dean & Sharpton hand in hand after the debates

"Democratic presidential hopeful former Gov. Howard Dean (news - web sites) of Vermont, left, clasps hands with Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, right, moments after the televised Rock the Vote Democratic presidential debate at Boston's Faneuil Hall, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003. The two hopefuls had a heated exchanged during the debate concerning voters who display the Confederate flag."(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, Pool)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=650235

John Nichols: Rebel flag flap shows media failure

If you want to understand just about everything that is wrong with the way American politics is practiced these days - and especially with the malpractice of the media - consider the absurd controversy about Howard Dean's comment that "I want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
…
What isn't being reported is this reality: Every single presidential candidate who is now expressing concern about Dean's remark has sat in meetings where political operatives, pollsters and consultants have discussed strategies for winning the votes of white working-class males. These voters, whose economic interests would be at least somewhat better served by Democratic policies but who tend to vote Republican for social and cultural reasons, have fueled the rise of the GOP in recent years. And Democrats are obsessed with figuring out how to reach them.

So why has the Dean comment proved to be so controversial? Good question. It has something to do with the desperation of the other candidates, who have had a hard time keeping up with the former Vermont governor's fund-raising juggernaut and highly effective grass-roots campaign. But, in truth, it has a lot more to do with the media.

Too many political reporters practice stenography to power. They simply take down what candidates have to say. This week, the other candidates are trying to paint Dean as the reincarnation of Jefferson Davis, and the media are dutifully reporting it.

More responsible and engaged media would stop to ask the deeper questions: Why do so many white working-class males vote against their own economic interests? Is it because they are racists who really do embrace the Confederacy's legacy? Is it because the Democratic Party has so abandoned populist economic messages that even voters in what were once traditional Democratic constituencies have lost faith in the party and its candidates? The answers to these questions are complicated; but they are at the core of any serious examination of our politics.

Unfortunately, most politicians are unwilling to engage in real discussions about race and economics, let alone the complex zones in which they intersect. And as the current controversy illustrates, most political reporters have lost the inclination, and perhaps even the ability, to demand better of the politicians.
…
http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/nichols/60451.php

Howard Dean campaigns in Tallahassee

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."

Dean, making his first campaign foray into North Florida, spoke at a rally in Jacksonville then addressed more than 500 people at a luncheon of the Capital Tiger Bay Club.
…
Dean said he hopes to reassemble a coalition of conservative southern voters like President Franklin Roosevelt had in the "solid South" 70 years ago. Although his opposition to the war in Iraq and his criticism of the Bush tax cuts do not score well in polls in the South, Dean said he hopes working families will support his call for improving education and health care.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/7181952.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=76824

Did these SOUTHERN, BLACK, Baptists have a problem with Dean's remarks?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=73335

[RuB]

3. "'Nobody pointed out

Dean has said 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost the election because he failed to win Southern states,"'

I will vote for Howard Dean in the primary and in the general election, but will someone PLEASE tell Howard that Al Gore DID NOT lose the 2000 election! Al Gore won the popular vote and if the Florida recount would have gone forward he would have won Florida hands down too. I know your trying to win the primary Howard but do it telling the truth about 2000!

[Terwilliger]

4. an amazing conclusion!

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said Friday in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

Nothing in the quote indicates any departure from the rationale Dean has expressed all along: He wants the votes of these people despite their fondness for the Confederate flag, not because of it.

Just exactly how is what Dean said interpreted to mean "despite...not because"? I'd say Saletan is a Dean supporter.

[Julien Sorel]

5. Saletan is a Bush supporter.

[dkf]

6. He is telling confederate flag waving racists

(and yes he is specifically targeting racists) what has your racism got you? Your kids don't have health insurance, jobs are fleeing the country etc.

Look why you have this hatred in your heart, its because the Repubs are encouraging this in order to make you vote against your own economic interests!

As someone else put it "It's a wake up call for "the Duke boys", to let them know that they're getting the shaft like most of their fellow Southerners."

[Julien Sorel]

7. That's the spin.

But the original message was,

'I don't think about your racism, I want your votes, and in exchange, I have this healthcare plan...'

[maha]

9. Nonsense.

Just read Saletan's article and think about it. Dean is making a legitimate point.

[Julien Sorel]

11. I never said Dean wasn't making a legitimate point.

For the 800th time, a) he communicated his point poorly b) the way he communicated his point demonstrates that he is not, contrary to his claims, in touch with minorities in this country.


I have no idea how many times I've made this point, only to have people come back and say, 'But Dean isn't a racist,' or 'What he meant to say was....' I'm dealing with what he did say, and what that says about him, not the spin that people are attaching to this. He fucked up, and anyone can do that (except Dean's opponents of course -- their screwups are always evidence of their inferiority), but this particular fuckup, and the way he's handled it, reveal some things about him that are not flattering.

[dave29]

16. The world understood when JFK said he was

a doughnut in Berlin.

Please.

Candidates were attacking the frontrunner. In a nationally televised debate his words were twisted against him (surprise), the inference being he is arrogant (a problem none of our other President's or Presidential candidates have had) and admittedly, he struggled to make his point clear. For this, he has now apologized - but not about his point, which is that we must be engaged in the process of winning over voters who are voting against their own economic interests. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason to apologize for that.

What terrible thing have we learned about Dean? That he is arrogant? Or stubborn? I suppose one could say that about anyone who adamantly defends his or her candidate to the point of absurdity here on DU. I see plenty of that everywhere I look.

None of our candidates are perfect, but if you cannot see the opportunism employed by Sharpton and Edwards here (and what does that say about them), you are smoking some good s**t.

Bottom line, all of our guys (and gal) are trying to win - Dean just happens to be succeeding.

[Hep]

19. He simply didn't mess up

Once again he is the center of attention, once again his message is getting across.

Evreyone is looking to Howard dean for information. The others have already failed to make themselves stand out. Howard Dean is instigating discussions that we wouldn't be having otherwise. Gephardt's "I don't want their vote" and Kery's "we can win without the south" messages show them to be weak. No one disagrees with what Dean's underlying point, that southern white working class folks have nothing to show for their support of the right. So Dean gets another thirty or forty chances to make that point while the others stand by and listen.

[jeter]

12. So I suppose that Clark

Will force southerners to beg the DNC for forgiveness and then MAYBE we'll let them vote for us.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sendero]

21. I think we know...

... who's posts are all 100% spin.

[pruner]

8. kick

:kick:

[Justice]

10. Another Bush Supporter Comes to Dean's Defense

How wonderful.

But let's not read anything into that.

no, the republicans don't want Dean as the nominee......

[NewYorkerfromMass]

15. Dean: "We won't always have the strongest military" and Saletan defends...

"Oops! That's a political no-no. Doctors understand mortality, but they don't understand that conceding the mortality of American military supremacy is politically verboten. The Kerry campaign pounced on Dean's gaffe, arguing that when it comes to national security, the soldier is in, and the doctor is way, way out. Dean's statement "raises serious questions about his capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief...."

Yet slavering Saletan goes on to defend this most ill-advised statement which I can assure you will be used against Dean to scare most sensible Americans right the fuck away from him.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2082229/

[mandyky]

14. kick

kick

[DrFunkenstein]

17. Most Improved And Most Cowardly

"Most improved performance: John Kerry.

Most cowardly moment: Dean. After ducking a question about whether he had used pot, he waited till other candidates had said yes before adding proudly that he had, too."

[DrFunkenstein]

20. But Elsewhere In Slate, Dean's Trashed Over The Kerfuffle

Dean handled tonight's kerfuffle over the Confederate flag poorly, and he did so in a way that raises a worrisome question about his candidacy. Why is he so obstinate about admitting that he was wrong? Earlier in the campaign, when Dean was confronted with changes in his positions on trade, on Social Security, and on Medicare, his first instinct was to deny that he had held the earlier position. Surely it would have been far easier to just say, hey, I made a mistake.

Something similar happens tonight. Dean could easily have pointed out that he phrased his comment slightly differently this time, and he could see how it was misinterpreted. It is, after all, somewhat different to say that you want to "be the candidate" for those who wave the Confederate flag than to say that you want to bring those voters into your party. The latter suggests at least some effort to change hearts and minds, while the former implies that you just want to be their standard-bearer. Sure, he calls the Confederate flag a "loathsome symbol," a "racist symbol," and he says the party shouldn't embrace it. But on the matter of admitting that he made a teeny, tiny error, Dean won't budge.

In a way he created his own mess tonight. Had he simply answered the question he was asked by an audience member—"Could you explain to me how you plan on being sensitive to needs and issues regarding slavery and African-Americans, after making a comment of that nature?"—he might have gotten off more easily. But instead of explaining what he wants to do for African-Americans, Dean decides to talk about white people. "There are 102,000 kids in South Carolina right now without health insurance. Most of those kids are white. The legislature cut $70 million out of the school system. Most of the kids in the public school system are white. We have had white southern working people voting for Republican for 30 years, and they've got nothing to show for it." This is all fine and good, and I'm generally against targeting political appeals to specific ethnic groups, but it was shockingly tone deaf for Dean to respond this way. The question was, how will you be sensitive to the needs of black people? Dean's response was, by working to help white people.

Al Sharpton jumps on Dean and says, "You are not a bigot, but you appear to be too arrogant to say 'I'm wrong,' and go on." (After the debate, Dean mistakenly attributes this comment to John Edwards.) Then, John Edwards stands up to confront Dean and delivers one of the best shots of the evening: "Because let me tell you the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do." By the time Edwards is done, you can feel his poll numbers among Southerners with chips on their shoulders start to spike."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090748/