"It's America's job to start looking like us."

[Padraig18]

Howard Dean's mistaken foray into inclusiveness


Published November 9, 2003


Memo

From: Chairperson, Ideological Purity Task Force, Democratic National Committee

To: Democratic presidential candidates

Re: Confederate flags and other matters

Folks, I'm afraid it's time to remind you of the old maxim that Republicans look for converts, and Democrats look for heretics. Let's keep those home fires burning! I know Howard Dean has learned the most important thing about this broad, diverse, tolerant, multicultural party of ours: If you're not like us, we don't want you.

Gov. Dean made a grave error, as the rest of you were kind enough to point out, when he said he wanted "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks." His idea seemed to be that we would rather have someone like that vote Democratic than Republican. While this may have a certain crazy logic, it gets everything backward.

Sure, we could use the votes of the many Southern males who still have an attachment to symbols of the Old South. Back in the old days, those guys would no more vote Republican than they would wear pink underwear, and they helped us win a lot of elections.

But we have to attend to some basic hygiene here. What would people think if the wrong sort of people showed up at the polls wearing a Howard Dean button? Why, they'd assume that Gov. Dean is a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan, that's what. The only way to avoid such misperceptions is to keep a safe distance between us and voters who have yet to achieve an acceptable level of enlightenment.

<snip>

More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0311090488nov09,1,6875485.column?coll=chi-news-col

For the record: The Chicago Tribune is a traditionally middle-of-the-road Republican newspaper; that said, I agree with this columnist's take on this whole 'flap'.

:hi:

[Padraig18]

1. Kick

:dem:

[Padraig18]

2. No thoughts at all?

:shrug:

[Brotherjohn]

5. Maybe people are hesitant to respond b/c it will start the inevitable...

...pro-Dean / anti-Dean face-off that seems all too common here these days.

Maybe people are tired of the topic.

More likely, maybe people are a bit sentitive to the accusation that the Democratic party isn't as inclusive as we'd like to think. I think the Dems are light years ahead of the Repubs as far as "inclusiveness". But I also think many of us tend to insulate ourselves, and automatically recoil at the thought of going after voters with some opinions we find reprehensible.

But folks, this isn't about shifting the party to the right (something we should never do; it's been done too much already). It's about appealing to voters who have recently voted with the right, and using our core values and issues to do so.

[Padraig18]

9. We need to talk about this.

I think the tongue-in-cheek manner the columnist uses is spot on, because it highlights the reasons so many in our party are afraid to talk about the issue; we have found it far more 'comfortable' to remain insular and self-justifying than to take an honest look at what we *do* mean when we say we are the party of inclusiveness, IMHO.

[On the Road]

8. My Thought is:

Dean's leading the agenda, and starting the discussion every step of the way. If you're first on the toboggan, you get a lot of ice flying in your face.

[Brotherjohn]

3. I agree 100%.

The columnist may be conservative, and he greatly oversimplifies some points about the left. But it's satire.

The main point is that we can't NOT want certain people's votes because they happen to hold some beliefs we don't, even if those beliefs are reprehensible.

That's all Dean was saying. Did he say it in a brusk, awkward way? Sure. But he also said it in an honest, straightforward, non-programmed way. That honestness and straightforwardness, although sometimes awkward, may end up winning him the election.

[Padraig18]

4. I agree.

one consistently positive comment I hear about Gov. Dean is about the way he speaks like ordinary people. I think many ordinary Americans find his lack of over-polished 'Beltway speak' quite refreshing.

[Brotherjohn]

6. Hate to say it, but it helped Bush in 2000.

His statements, although often inarticulate and downright moronic, were certainly "regular guy" enough. To this day, people view him as "straightforward" (even as they move away from him on the issues).

But it's possible to behave in a less scripted way and speak from the hip, to be straightforward and honest, and do so with intelligence. Anyone who does so can trounce Bush. I fear anyone, intelligence or not, who resorts to typical politician-speak, will lose. People have been moving for years away from the pre-programmed politician, and towards the "regular guy". Witness early Clinton, Ross Perot, and yes, Bush 2000. Of course, with Bush, it was all entirely scripted and fake anyway, but to their credit, the Rove Machine realized this and went after it with a vengeance.

With Dean, I think it's real. That's who he is.

[Padraig18]

7. It is who he is.

And as you pint out, America wants that.

[Brotherjohn]

10. Especially coming from a New England doctor...

... I think it made a lot of southerners, and Democrats, wince.

Statements like Edwards saying "we don't need someone to come down here and tell us how to live" were much more insensitive (I'd say reactionary), not to mention downright wrong. In no way was that what Dean was doing. If anything, he was telling some other Democrats, that it is THEY who do not need to go down to the South and tell people how to live. That is a recipe for disaster.

His statement was a plea for inclusiveness. It's just that some Democrats would not like to include the people to whom the plea was directed. For my part, I believe we are big enough to include anyone who believes in enough of our core values to vote Democrat. They don't have to agree with all of them, and they may agree with Bush on many of them. They may also have some ideas that we strongly disagree with. But if we agree enough to vote Democrat, then I welcome them.

[Padraig18]

11. My sentiments exactly!

We should quit stereotyping all Southerners as somehow being antithetical to the stances and purpose of the Democratic party.

[Padraig18]

12. Kick for the afternoon crowd.

:dem:

[jpgray]

13. Like all defenses of Dean's admitted mistake, it misses the point

The point is that the Confederate flag represents a nation founded to permanently maintain the enslavement of an entire race. Blacks understandably find this flag offensive.

So why use such a divisive symbol? There is no answer to that, and that's why Dean, to his great credit, apologized. Dean's goal--to bring Southerners back appealing to their best interests--is great, but he shouldn't identify them in such a way that he offends blacks. There are other ways to identify Southerners, why use one that offends blacks? There isn't any good answer to that.

And no, the Confederate flag's connections to slavery can never be effectively neutralized--the whole nation of the Confederate states was founded on maintaining slavery. I admit that Southerners who fly the flag aren't all racist--many connect it with Southern pride. But why be sensitive to their feelings on the flag and not those of blacks? Why choose a divisive symbol?