This is what Dean meant, in his own words

[BurtWorm]

quoted by Sidney Blumenthal on salon.com:

"I think the Republicans, ever since 1968, with Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, have divided us on race issues. Look, when I go to the South, I talk about race deliberately ... If we're going to have elections about race, we might as well talk about it openly. I want white males, particularly in the South, to come back to the Democratic Party. And the case that FDR made was, look, when was the last time you all got a raise? When was the last time your kids got decent health insurance? What kind of schools do your kids go to if you can't afford a private academy?"

From a speech in March 2003. He has an excellent point.

[wtmusic]

1. I want to hear what Dean meant

in everyone else's words!! ;-)

[BurtWorm]

2. Blumenthal's take on Dean's dilemma

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/08/apologies/print.html

This time Dean left off the filigree of Nixon and Roosevelt. And precisely because Dean is now the frontrunner, the other Democratic primary candidates leaped to create a controversy out of his truncated version, implying that he is racist. The immediate subtext was to stop Dean's momentum.


For days after his gaffe Dean engaged in the etiquette of fulsome apologies. He began by condemning the Confederate flag as "a painful symbol," then asked for forgiveness from "any people in the South who thought they were being stereotyped." A day later he calling his language "clumsy," and added, "I deeply regret the pain that I may have caused." He concluded by portraying the gaffe as a personality flaw: "Now, unfortunately, we all know that nobody's personality is perfect. So the things that make me a strong candidate are also my Achilles' heel." An overdue discussion of the Republicans' Southern strategy was replaced by bowing and scraping.

[jpgray]

3. I thought the statement was ill-advised, but he didn't need to backtrack

Don't make me call him "Dr. Waffle"! :)

I would never do that, but Dean should have explained himself as he did previously. He worded the argument badly that one time, but it was the right argument, just the wrong words.

[BurtWorm]

5. Haley Barbour went to CCC (aka KKK-lite) event on eve of election.

(From the same piece by Blumenthal):

...

Reagan consolidated the Southern strategy that Richard Nixon formulated in response to the civil rights movement. This Republican Party has created the radically conservative Southern presidency of George W. Bush. Another scene: When Bush's candidacy was threatened in the Republican primaries of 2000, he rescued himself by appearing at Bob Jones University and wrapping himself in support of the preservation of the Confederate emblem on the South Carolina state flag.

Dean's remarks were awkward, but his challenge to the Republican Party's basic character and the need for a strategy for defeating it will inevitably be revisited by whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, if that nominee cares about winning.

Consider yet another scene: On the day before Dean's last apology, Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the third biggest lobbyist in Washington, was elected governor of Mississippi. He had campaigned at an event sponsored by the Council of Concerned Conservatives, an overtly racist group and successor organization to the White Citizens' Council that led opposition to civil rights in the 1960s. In his lapel Barbour wore a pin of the Mississippi state flag, a matter of controversy because of its incorporation of the Confederate flag. On election night, even before he was announced as the winner, Barbour received a congratulatory telephone call from George W. Bush. Look away, Dixieland.

As the great novelist William Faulkner, of Mississippi, wrote: "The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."

[blm]

6. Sorry, but Dean was not being honest about WHY he made his remark.

And few reporters have picked up on that fact.

Dean said ON CAMERA that he was trying to start a discussion about race relations when he made his 'clumsy' remark.

UNTRUE...he was defending his NRA support position in an interview with a Des Moines paper. Race relations was NOT part of the interview, and nowhere is it mentioned.

http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22649906.html
Kerry criticizes Dean's gun views
By THOMAS BEAUMONT
Register Staff Writer
11/01/2003
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, said Dean's opposition to an assault weapons ban in 1992, recorded in a National Rifle Association endorsement questionnaire, contradicts his position as a presidential candidate supporting a federal assault weapons ban.

Kerry supported the 1994 bill that outlawed the sale and ownership of assault weapons, which Dean says he now supports.

"Howard Dean, during the time we were trying to pass it, was appealing to the NRA for their support," Kerry said, while visiting a rural Story County farm."We don't need to be a party that says we need to be the candidacy of the NRA. We stand up against that."

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."

Dean said he answered the questionnaire while running for re-election as governor of Vermont. He has said he was never asked to sign a gun control bill during his Vermont tenure.
>>>>>>>

[mzmolly]

8. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Hippo_Tron]

4. Exactly... Dean just made an ass of himself in the process

But seriously, our candidates should seriously go to the south and campaign on "what exactly have the Republicans ever done for you?" I bet that if you promise not to take away their guns, you could actually draw a lot of votes.

[BurtWorm]

7. kick

[mzmolly]

9. "They" knew what he meant, the comment was politicized to advance

the 'take Dean out' agenda. Or, the I'm pissed at Jesse Jackson Jr. agenda...

Pathetic (especially from hypocrites like Al Sharpton *racial uniter extraordinaire*) :eyes: