Think Dean's comments on "race, guns, God and gays" have been forgotten?

[flpoljunkie]

Think again. Karl Rove and Rethug minions are salivating. On C-Span this AM on 2004 Senate Races, former head of RSCC said that any candidate insulting the South regarding their religious fervor was making a big mistake. Video not yet up.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-edpparker09110903nov09,1,1333904,print.column?coll=orl-news-col-opinion

Howard Dean's `Amazing Foot-Eating Trick' wows voters
Kathleen Parker

November 9, 2003

Earth to Dean: If you want to convert the Martians, don't make fun of their cheese.
Howard Dean seems like a nice guy. Direct, passionate, unpretentious. But he's got this one little problem: He cannot keep his foot away from his mouth.

First it was the "Confederate trucks" comment that he wanted "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in (sic) their trucks." No, no, no, Dr. Dean, the flag is ON the truck.

Then a few days later he told a Tallahassee crowd that Southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays." And this was all in the spirit of attracting the white-boy, NASCAR vote.

Poor Dean. I'm 100 percent certain he's trying to say the right thing, trying to be inclusive, to take back the Southern states from the GOP because, yes, the South is home to people who, whatever their peculiarities, need jobs, health care and better schools. If Candidate Dean can offer improvements in those areas, then surely Southerners need to hear about them. But for some reason, Dean cannot seem to say what he means.

I feel for the guy, but please don't change on my account. Columnists can only be grateful for politicians who utter things like "race, guns, God and gays" in one breath.

<snip>

Permit me to offer a little advice: If you're courting the area of America known as The Bible Belt, don't dis' God. If you're addressing a demographic group that sets its calendar by the start of dove season, try not to imply that there's anything wrong with guns or gun racks in the back of trucks.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

1. I sure hope they are not forgotten

The dialogue they have opened represents the only hope the Democratic Party has for achieving victory in the next 20 years.

[Terwilliger]

2. DAMN! Dean said something he SHOULD have said! Amazing!!

But I have much less patience with him now that he's pandering SOOO much. He wants the guys with Confederate flags on their trucks, yet acknowledges that the "south" is (at least in a significant way) about how many white folks are racists.

[CWebster]

3. Unlike Kerry

who on "meet the Press" totally rejected appealing to politically incorrect Southerners on any level.

And Kerry wonders why his campaign is flopping? Who is his target group? He lost all the progressives with his vote on Iraq--they are split between Kucinich and Dean, Edwards has all the trial lawyers, Clark has cut into the military hero status.I guess it must be all those Office Park Dads and Soccer Moms--the key demographic of the upper-middle class boom years of the long gone 90's.

Reality comes a'knockin'.

[TLM]

5. Dean should be more like Kerry.... sit on the fence

and not really take a strong position on anything one way or the other... that way he won't run the risk of offending anybody.


We see how well the fence sitter policy is working for Kerry.

[RetroLounge]

28. or more like Edwards, and tell those Northerners

they are not needed to tell the South how to live/Vote, etc.

Hmmm. Isn't that what the Good Old Boys from the KKK told those do-gooders from the North during the Civil Rights Movement?

Good job Edwards using the coded bigot-speak, you fit right in with the good old boys.

[Scott Lee]

40. Or Gephardt, who fiddled while Iraq burned

.

[Keebs]

6. urrrrgh

I'm sure everyone is wanting their democratic hopeful to come out on top, but ya know... ANYONE BUT FRICKIN BUSH. I'll support just about anyone who makes it!

[newyawker99]

35. Hi Keebs!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Uzybone]

11. Pandering to racists is fine with you

man I can wait for primary season to be over. Maybe liberals will start thinking like liberals again, instead of rationalizing every stupid fucking thing that comes out of thier chosen guys mouth.

[Terwilliger]

17. oh shit, are you kidding?

when the primaries are over, the Dem candidate will swing back to the center like a whiplash!

[onehandle]

20. But..but...

You mean my super librul candidate will be less than super librul come Summer?

Say it ain't so. Is there a historical reference?

ha ha...

[Terwilliger]

29. less THAN liberal, more like

[blm]

42. THAT'S why I'm fighting.

This is our best chance to get the most liberal Dem nominee we can, and too many are being snookered by a gawddam centrist Libertarian.

[Scott Lee]

41. Is pandering to warmongers ok with you Kerry/Gephardt folks?

Sure is, from where I'm sitting.

[Don_G]

21. Kerry Also Appeared On A Radio Talk Show

Spent the first half bashing Dean until the announcer reminded Kerry that the show was about him and not Dean.

Screw Kerry...I'm going Dean.

[flpoljunkie]

31. Actually, Knoy just pointed out that Howard Dean was not there to discuss

his position on Medicare and his recent comments about cutting entitlements. Of course, Dean was not there on her radio show.--Kerry was. Kerry said he would love to discuss these issues and others with Howard Dean himself.

Yet the New York Times chose to spin this by bashing Kerry. I am not surprised.

[JNelson6563]

36. Lame

So Kerry was (again) yammering on about his favorite fetish~~Dean~~while given the opportunity to tell us all what a fab job he'd do in demolishing the BFEE.

In an hourlong interview on a public radio program in Concord on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry, who two months ago publicly chastised his campaign manager for assailing Dr. Dean, again and again turned questions about his own views into attacks on Dr. Dean, until his host finally politely asked that Senator Kerry use his time to talk about Senator Kerry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/politics/campaigns/09DEMS.html?pagewanted=2&hp

This is getting unhealthy.

Julie

[flpoljunkie]

37. Kerry never said this; it was Adam Nagourney spin, as usual.

Spent the first half bashing Dean until the announcer reminded Kerry that the show was about him and not Dean.

[killbotfactory]

4. Republicans are so PC

He didn't "dis god". He said they shouldn't base their vote on wedge issues.

We can write off the hardcore fundies. If Christ himself came down from heaven to endorse a democrat, they'd call him a heretic.

[TLM]

7. Exactly... Dean may piss off a small segment of really religious folks

who will never vote dem anyway. But the fact is that Dean is reaching a large population of folks who are not bible thumpers, who feel strongly about gun rights, but who are not gun nuts.

here is a large group of folks in teh south who are right on the line between voting dem and republican... folks hwo are sick of Bush, sick of the bible thumping, sick of racisct wedge issues.

Dean is reaching out to these folks and giving them reasons to vote for dems again. This scares the shit out of the status quo folks.

[flpoljunkie]

8. Insulting people is not reaching out!

No matter how hard you try to spin it.

[Hep]

13. Tell it to your man

He hasn't exactly been Mr. Nice Guy.

Can't have it both ways.

[Scott Lee]

15. That's funny - more energy expended here against Dean than

Dean against others. Can you explain that odd differential?

[Hep]

25. WHo can say?

Dean's the front runner!

[Terwilliger]

10. he's need to be better about expression

that's just patently obvious

[NewYorkerfromMass]

23. not obvious enough for some

I'm afraid.

[killbotfactory]

27. He's to blunt sometimes. It gets people panties in a twist.

Sometimes he sticks his foot in his mouth. But that's why people love him.

The other option is to parse every word and sound like a typical smarmy politician who panders to everybody.

[Terwilliger]

30. no, the option is to speak to many issues with equal prominence

usually BEFORE you get on a stage or do an interview

and your refence suggests that people who are upset by what he says are (somehow) less than rational, which, given the circumstances, is wholly sexist

[ozone_man]

47. And I say keep doing it.

Time still to improve the message, limit the verbal blunders that he sometimes make. Persistence pays off in the end, and if he really wants that vote that lies in the balance, that could tip a few key states in the South, he better keep at it.

[chimpymustgo]

9. Nothing condescending, arrogant or elitist in THAT statement.

NOT!!!!!

Dean just doesn't get it.

[Terwilliger]

12. that must be me too, cause I agree with him

this whole "The South" thing really does revolve around that

[Scott Lee]

14. "We must not let this irrelevence die!" - Deanophobes

Phew, I was wondering where you guys were today. It's almost 1:30 pm and I hadn't seen an anti-Dean hate thread yet!

Why so slow today? Monday blues?

[JNelson6563]

16. Like candidate, like supporter

In an hourlong interview on a public radio program in Concord on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry, who two months ago publicly chastised his campaign manager for assailing Dr. Dean, again and again turned questions about his own views into attacks on Dr. Dean, until his host finally politely asked that Senator Kerry use his time to talk about Senator Kerry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/politics/campaigns/09DEMS.html?pagewanted=2&hp

Why not post some of the positive developments from your candidate's campaign? ;-)

Julie

[flpoljunkie]

32. See post #31.

.

[onehandle]

18. Not Faux....

They were harping on it for 15 minutes this morning on Faux and Frauds.

They got the memo from Herr Karl.

[Paxton_Free]

19. Not if..

Not if you keep bringing it up.

Just kidding.

Rock on.

[demgrrrll]

22. I thought Rove wanted to run against Dean. Why would they want to

knee-cap the person that they want to run against.

[_NorCal_D_]

24. Good-bye South

Dean is definitely an expert at putting his foot in his mouth.

[Scott Lee]

39. And Kerry is an expert at putting BUSH's foot in his mouth

ouch.

[_NorCal_D_]

46. Good point.

:)

[Guaranteed]

26. Actually, I've seen flags IN the truck.. ACTUAL FLAGS. nt

[bushisanidiot]

33. Sounds Like The Rovies Are Scared of Dean. GOOD!

Dean is hitting them where it hurts.. he's reaching out to poor southern whites, and he'll get them!


GO DEAN!!

[library_max]

34. By the way, let's not forget

that Kathleen Parker is a wellspring of self-satisfied ignorance. Her column appears in the local paper I read, and it seems like every other column she writes is about how something or another is too important to leave up to people who actually know something about it (education, treatment of convicts, etc.).

[quaker bill]

38. It is Kathleen Parker

The one who used the line that 'all dem candidates should be lined up and shot' in last weeks column. Earning her disfavor is a badge of honor for any Democratic candidate. She is a shrill conservative hack on her best days.

[depakid]

43. It really does amaze me that people post Kathleen Parker

to support their opinions.

It might be more productive to conjure up the spirits of Lee Atwater or Barbara Olson.

[flpoljunkie]

45. Suggest you check out C-Span video now up regarding Dean & the South.

Former Communications Director for Republican Senate Campaign Committee, Ginny Wolf, talks about Dean and the South. It's not just Rethug journalists like Parker.

http://www.c-span.org

Debate on the 2004 Senate Electiom, 11/10/03

[mmonk]

44. It may backfire on Rove

to give away that they play some southerners (hopefully they will wise up) based on certain things .

[AnnabelLee]

48. Locking

Please see rule #3 here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=463744

3. If you post an article or other published content which is from a conservative source or which expresses a traditionally conservative viewpoint, you must state your opinion about the piece and/or the issues it raises.

Thank you
AnnabelLee
DU Moderator