How stupid is this confederate flag strategy?

[joyautumn]

Dean finally apologized but he is still trying to spin out of his confederate flag statements, and Sharpton is right to call him on that, because it's just stupid. How many black votes will Dean lose in the South for every white male confederate-flag pickup-driver he picks up there? Does he plan to go stumping where those confederate-flag-waivers hang out? How many of those venues would be known to locals as nests of blatantly racist sentiment and activity, and how will that play in the local papers, especially those controlled by Republicans? The sheer suicide of Dean campaigning in the South with this strategy is just mind-boggling. Any Dem candidate should avoid being seen within a mile of a confederate flag at all costs, ever. But all Dean's rich friends in their ivory towers think it's a grand idea, and one or two of them are black, so ...

Sharpton has been busting his ass trying to get new black voters to register and vote, and here comes Dean the supposed liberal front-runner come out to destroy all of Sharpton's hard work with a bunch of crazy talk about how important the southern white racist vote is to the supposed left wing of the Democratic Party. And Dean defends this idiocy! And tons of other Dems defend it by saying what a grand ovation this crap got when Dean said it to the DNC months ago! So now it's not just a slip of the tongue or mind on the campaign trail -- it's this ingenious strategy he thunk up at the very start of his campaign! Oh, but confederate flags aren't technically racist, right? Sure, you go ahead and lecture Al Sharpton about what's racist and what's not, Dr. Dean, you tell him. So all these new voters Al signed up -- are they going to go to the polls just to vote Confederate Dean over Confederate Bush? No, they'll do what they've always done, something productive on election day, take the kids to the park, work some overtime, run some errands, clip some coupons, comb through the family budget to save a few nickels, etc.

Dean needs to say, "This was a stupid strategy and I renounce it completely. I can't believe I and my idiot friends in the DNC thought it was a good idea. No, no, no. I want every anti-racist vote in the South, that's my margin of victory. If a confederate-flag-waiver wants me to represent him or her, he or she can put that old flag aside -- we get the point -- pick up a new American flag and join the rest of us in pointing it at Washington and telling that damn Yankee in the White House to bring our kids home, black, white, brown, all of them home, because this is one Union war that every American should be against, because it's wrong, because it's not for us, not for the common good, not for the common defense, not for our well-being. And it's bleeding us dry."

But I forgot -- it takes someone of Kucinich's mettle to think, feel and speak with such clarity, passion and statecraft, and Dean is no Kucinich. And Kucinich is no Cynthia McKinney, so the Democratic Party has not changed as to what floats to the top of it, or is even permitted to linger at the bottom. So the Dems let McKinney get beat in the Democratic Primary by a Republican. So the Dems will sabotage everything Sharpton is trying to do for the party, then race-bait him and scapegoat him for complaining, for trying to point out that Emperor Dean's new confederate clothes are strangely transparent. Sharpton's problem is that he's too loyal to the white liberal leadership of the Democratic Party and their token black auxiliary, still trying to tutor them when they never learn a damn thing, still at their side prodding and goading and getting defecated on and told to fetch everyone else's slippers. He's right on, but he may be too weak to really make the Democrats stand back and get out of his way.

And Jesse Jackson Jr.? What he may be unto himself may be awesome, but it's what he is to the white Dem leadership that will decide his ultimate role and impact in the Party. Dean said it best himself when he called him, "a young up-and-coming African-American leader." Doesn't he realize what the slang acronym for "young up-and-coming" has been in American English for the past twenty years? Yuppie. Dean praised Jesse Jr. for being a Yuppie. Yup. Does Dean get the irony? Nope. Does Jesse? Of course he does, but what good does that do him or the constituencies he seeks to champion?

[On the Road]

1. Dean's Commments Have Already Had Their Effect

and it's worked to broaden his appeal. A lot of diverse sources have come to his defense. And a lot of NASCAR dads have heard a democratic candidate who actually wants their vote and isn't about to snatch their guns (no matter how stupid that fear may be).

Do you any effect in the polls for the primary? I don't. It will just help Dean in the general election.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. I'll bet you 90% of those NASCAR dads supported the Iraq War

Give it up. Those votes are gone as far as Deano goes.

[TLM]

23. And your track record has been so spot on thus far...

:puke:


A lot of the NASCAR Dads probably DID support the war when they thought it would be a 3-day video game war like GWI. Now that their kids or their friend's kids are coming home in a box, they're getting laid off, and they see a huge debt being passed on... suddenly that war support isn't what it was.

[Hep]

40. Wow

Now you're onlystereotyping 90% of a population instead of 100% Good for you. This is progress.

[TLM]

44. LOL! Yeah I think the bigotry reflected in comments like that

is often lost on the folks on the left who think you have to be a white southerner who hates blacks to be biggoted or racist.

Yet you can see folks on the left talk about southern whites with the same level of racism and hate that you might hear at a KKK rally directed at blacks.

I think that they should all just sum up their position and start calling Dean a "cracker lover." It would save them a lot of time.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

45. Given the macho, patriotic, and VIOLENT nature of auto racing

I'd say my estimate is not inaccurate.

[Hep]

46. LOL!

All sports are republican. Sports is a republican concept. Big deal. Doesn't mean you can stereotype spectators.

BTW, how many races have you attended? NASCAR, that is? Out of curiosity.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

52. Many Nascar modifieds

at the Stafford Motor Speedway in CT.
Bring the earplugs! (yuch)

[Hep]

55. So these are the NASCAR dads

you refer to? I'm sure modified races in COnnecticut are exactly the same as Winston Cup races in Rockingham, NC.

[Dubyawatchers]

2. Dean's New Southern Strategy

Dean's New Southern Strategy,
By Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr

http://jessejacksonjr.org/issues/i111503685.html

Says a lot and
works for me

[DinahMoeHum]

3. Wrong prop was used, but It's hardly a dumb strategy. . .

Jesse Jackson Jr. explains in The Nation:
"Dean's New Southern Strategy"
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031201&s=jackson
(snip)

"Historically, the Confederate flag is a symbol of the Democratic Party. Today, however, Republicans can fly and wave it, but Democrats can't talk about it--and current Democrats don't know how to handle it..."

"As a result, the symbol Howard Dean used got in the way of his substance, but his substance was on point--and the point was that Southern whites and blacks together must focus on their common economic needs: jobs, good schools, affordable healthcare..."
(snip)




:kick:

[SEAburb]

4. nice to see someone besides Billy Bunter and me gets it.

The use of the Confederate flag was part of Dean's "southern strategy". It wasn't a slip, gaffe or an oversite.

I just hope this doesn't hurt other Dem candidates running in the south. There are a number of open senate seats in the SE and we were going to have a hard enough time winning them without this issue being thrown into the mix.

[Hep]

5. Nice to see that only three of you

still make it an issue. But then, who is surprised that the OP of this thread is so far behind the times?

[SEAburb]

9. I'd like to thank you for keeping

this thread alive.

[Hep]

21. My pleasure

seeing as how it was beyond my control.

But I appreciate the flattery of your thiking that I'm that powerful!

[TLM]

19. Exactly....

The regular Dean bashers want so bad for this to hurt Dean.

They remind me of the republicans during the impeachment farce, just getting so upset that no matter how much shit they slung at Clinton, his numbers kept going up up up.

These bashers are the same way with Dean... they keep trying and failing and their frustration is evident. They're now going so far into this anti-Dean obsession that they're attacking the very idea of being excited and politically motivated about a candidate as a cult-like behavior... you know like that big civil rights cult Dr. King started.

Dean had been using the flag remark for months without a peep from the other dems... until Dean was so far ahead that these other guys were getting desperate, then they start up with the accusations/implications of racism.

Then their attempt to blow this flag crap all out of context and spin it as if Dean was embracing the confederate flag, falls flat, making them look like a pack of dishonest desperate clowns. But like 3 or 4 Dean bashers are still trying so hard to keep the meme alive, hoping if they just keep feigning offense and repeating the spin that people will buy it.

[Hep]

22. Even worse

is the logical leap they have to make to prove their point. They actually have to believe the misguided notion that ALL people who fly the flag HAVE TO BE racist, therefore Dean is pandering to bigots. It's a scary thing to demonize an entire population. I wonder how they rationalize it.

[TLM]

26. I still can;t get even one of them to answer my question

about why the confederate flag is a syombol of all the bad things that happened in the south... and anybody who flies it therefore must support all the racism and oppression that happened under that flag... yet old glory is not a symbol of all the bad things the union did... like slaughtering the native people of this country.

If the stars and bars a racist symbol simply because fo the racism that existed in the region the flag represents, then how is old glory not also a symbol for the raicsm, sexism, and genocide that too place under that flag?

If you put a US flag sticker on your car, does that mean you support the genocide and displacement of native americans?

[LeahMira]

31. Does treason work for you?

why the confederate flag is a syombol of all the bad things that happened in the south... and anybody who flies it therefore must support all the racism and oppression that happened under that flag...

The Confederate Flag was and is the symbol of a group of people who chose treason against the United States. They chose to attack the United States militarily. Racism and oppression aside for the moment, the treasonous attack on their own country was the big problem and to the extent that some in the southern states still seem to support the ideas embodied in that symbol the rest of us in the United States find the Confederate Flag a turn-off.

If you put a US flag sticker on your car, does that mean you support the genocide and displacement of native americans?

That's certainly something to think about! Since we (as a nation) have done little to address that genocide and make some sort of restitution for what happened, I'd say that putting a United States flag sticker on a car is either unthinking or in really bad taste... unless you have it upside down.

[Ripley]

34. How old are you?

Don't travel much huh?

...that symbol the rest of us in the United States find the Confederate Flag a turn-off.

Confederate flags are in every state. And you might want to actually meet a southerner who is not a racist, yet owns a Confederate flag, before you actually detail what he is thinking.

[Hep]

41. EXACTLY

Word.

[TLM]

36. Well the idea of treason is subjective...

"The Confederate Flag was and is the symbol of a group of people who chose treason against the United States. They chose to attack the United States militarily. Racism and oppression aside for the moment, the treasonous attack on their own country was the big problem and to the extent that some in the southern states still seem to support the ideas embodied in that symbol the rest of us in the United States find the Confederate Flag a turn-off."


Wasn't our revolution against England just as treasonous as the Confederate State's failed attempt at revolution against the union?

These terms are subjective and are defined by the winners of these conflicts.

Just like the taliban... they were "freedom fighters" when they were killing russians with weapons and training Reagan provided them. Yet when they start doing the same thing to the US that we had them doing to to Russia, they are terrorists.




"That's certainly something to think about! Since we (as a nation) have done little to address that genocide and make some sort of restitution for what happened, I'd say that putting a United States flag sticker on a car is either unthinking or in really bad taste... unless you have it upside down."

I think it just shows that symbols like the flag or the confederate flag, have different meanings to different folks. And it is silly to act as if flying a given flag means you support all the bad things that have happened under that flag.

[LeahMira]

27. That may be...

... but southern blacks and southern whites do have some common issues, as another post mentioned.

I was taken aback at first by Dean's comment, but I suppose I understand where he was going with it now. At the same time, it was not a graceful comment, and we have already a leader who puts his foot into his mouth entirely too often.

I hope that by the time the nominee is selected, and if Howard Dean is selected, he will have learned to watch what he says and how he says it.

[TLM]

32. I hope not... we need someone who is blunt and honest

not someone who is timid about each word he speaks because he's worried about what opportunistic twit is going to try and spin it out of context for political gain.

I hate it when politicians do that... Kerry is one of the worst and Clark is doing it too. They talk for 5 minutes, speaking only in platitudes and generalities, and by the end of their comments, they haven't said a damn thing.

Dean just comes right out and says flat out what needs to be said. I like that and so do a lot of people who are sick of these guys who just sit on the fence saying nothing of substance.

[CWebster]

8. Billy Bunter....

lol! Only a freeper could hate Clinton more than Bunter hates Dean. Dropping his name won't add any credibility to your anti-Dean argument.

[SEAburb]

58. I think you're confusing Billy's passion for hate

I don't think you hate the Dem candidates you passionately attack, but I could be wrong.

[kentuck]

7. I think you are mischaracterizing it as a "Confederate Flag" issue....

That was only a side remark as he was talking about getting southern voters to vote Democratic because they deserve good healthcare and good education for their children also.

[Terwilliger]

12. I'm amazed that people keep dismissing his intentional use...

of the confederate flag as "a side remark"...it's not a side remark...he said the same thing twice

[kentuck]

18. I took it as a "side remark" when I heard it...

He didn't just say, I want the votes of those people with confederate flags on their pickup trucks....he added comments about healthcare and education to the flag comment. It's unfortunate that some people chose to focus on the words "confederate flag" rather than the words "healthcare" or "education", but I suppose he might say it direrently if he had to do it again. However, I do not think Dean is a racist or a southern sympathizer...

[Terwilliger]

24. once again, you're ignoring the implications of his use of those words

if he never mentioned the confederate flag, there would be no issue

He appealed to people who value their hatred of another race...I'd like to know, what part of "Democrat" does that make him?

[kentuck]

28. That's your interpretation...

I don't think these people "value their hatred of another race". I think there is still racism in this country but I think there is just as much up north as there is down south. I think it would be helpful to stop perpetuating that myth.

[Ripley]

30. Some DUers believe it's okay to stereotype and be intolerant

of certain people. White southerners are the perennial whipping boy/girl on this board. It amazes me how many posts are allowed to stand yet they would be immediately pulled if they were about a minority instead.

Some people seem to have a really distorted view of what the south is. I guess I could help promote stereotyping by thinking that all New Jersians are in the mafia.

[TLM]

38. Exactly... it is very disapointing to me...

If a southern republican reached out to working class black voters and was accused of being a ni**er lover by far right repukes, we would all look at that as a disgusting example of the bigoted views of a racist group trying hard to prevent blacks and white from working together for shared goals.


Yet when a northern democrat reaches out to working class southern whites, he's accused of basically being a cracker lover. It is the same thing from some folks on the left who are just as bigoted as their counterparts on the other side of the political spectrum.

Meanwhile there is this huge block of working class people, black and white, in the south looking for someone who will break this strategy of racial division and give them a reason to work together for their shared goals.

[LeahMira]

56. It was the stereotype...

Yet when a northern democrat reaches out to working class southern whites, he's accused of basically being a cracker lover.

Sorry, but most of my family lives in the south... Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina specifically. None of them have family incomes of over $100,000. so I'd guess they are working class. None of them rides around in a pick-up with a confederate flag on the back.

If most working class southern whites do vote Republican, then maybe Gov. Dean should be reaching out to PEOPLE in the south who usually vote Republican (white or black; working class or middle class or unemployed class), to show them that Democrats have much to offer them.

I'll give Gov. Dean the benefit of the doubt here. I'll agree that he hopes to be able to improve life for all Americans. Still, in reaching out to working class southern whites, what he managed to do was stereotype them in the same old tired way that they've been stereotyped for years. He's sort of apologized now, so let's let it go. But let's hope he doesn't do the same kind of thing again.

[TLM]

29. And what did he appeal to them to do?

"He appealed to people who value their hatred of another race..."

Yeah and he appealed to them to look beyond their racial differences and come together with folks of other races to work for their shared goals of good healthcare and good schools. TO stop letting the republicans use race to scare these folks into voting against their own best interests.

"I'd like to know, what part of "Democrat" does that make him?"

The best kind... the kind who tells the truth that not only do we need the southern working class vote to win, but working class southern whites need to stop letting republicans divide us by race.

Maybe you want to maintain the republicans' southern strategy of dividing folks based on race, but Dean does not. Dean wants to bring those folks together, and he will, no matter how hard the PC police might try to maintain those racial divides.

[TLM]

25. Hesaid the same thing way more than twice....

Dean has been using the flag remark for 11 months.

And there was never a problem with it, that is until Dean was so far ahead of the rest of the pack that they were desperate enough to push this bullshit attack.

People say it is a side remark because the confederate flag was not the focus of his comments, rather just an icon for the group that Dean was taking about who should be voting dem because their kids need good schools and they need healthcare too.

[Scott Lee]

10. Stupid enough to widen Dean's support in the South

Or can I assume you think the Democrats have enough support and shouldn't try to get anymore for a run at the White House?

[Terwilliger]

13. support from...whoever?

Let's see if we can get the anti-Semitic vote too!

[TLM]

39. Why not.... if the anti-semites can put their healthcare and schools

ahead of their anti-Semitism and vote dem... why not?


Or do you want to excommunicate anybody who isn’t ideologically pure from our big tent? Saying we want a given group to vote for us is not to say that somehow we're going to adopt the very worst ideas or beliefs that group holds.


So if there is someone who has an anti-choice position on abortion, yet is a very strong union supporter and is against the Iraq war and wants to vote dem because of the economy... would you have them vote republican because you disagree with their abortion position?


I mean do you seriously want FEWER votes for the dems?

[WhosNext]

48. Please leave!

Please go to www.greenparty.com Or www.communistparty.com

[Forkboy]

49. please dont tell members where to go

:eyes:

[kentuck]

53. Although I disagree with Terwilliger on this issue, I agree most

of the time and do not wish for him to leave? Where do you get that crap?

[poskonig]

11. Chill Out.

We need to get southern whites and blacks to work together if we are going to do well in southern states.

The paranoic 'Al Sharpton is being sabotaged' nonsense has nothing to do with the Confederate flag.

It seems like you hate whites too. Given your newbie status, are you sure you're not here to cause trouble? :+

[Terwilliger]

15. what do you suggest?

94% of blacks in Mississippi voted for Musgrove, while over 80% of whites in Mississippi voted for Barbour...

Could the situation be any clearer?

[TLM]

37. Yeah the situation is very clear...

"94% of blacks in Mississippi voted for Musgrove, while over 80% of whites in Mississippi voted for Barbour...

Could the situation be any clearer?"


What is clear is that some Dems seem to want to maintain these racial divides and will attack anybody who even tries to bring these groups together based on their shared goals of healthcare and good schools and jobs.

It makes me sick to see so called dems attacking Dean for reaching out to the working class whites in the south, just like some folks on the far right will attack a republican for reaching out to blacks by calling him a ni**er lover.

Maybe you should just shorten up your position and call Dean a cracker lover?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. and the stereotypic Dean chose the wrong symbol

to make his point (which I agree with, as do most Dems).
Dean should never have mentioned the confederate flag. What is there not to understand about that?

[poskonig]

17. Dude, the poster complained about the "white liberal leadership"

It is most likely flamebait. As you read the post, none of the arguments support its thesis about the Confederate flag.

[TLM]

43. Non-PC speak es VERBODEN!

"Dean should never have mentioned the confederate flag. What is there not to understand about that?"

Again we see that the context of the mention means nothing to oppertunistic bashers, nor does the point of his statement.

Simply using the words "confederate flag" is a high crime and the PC police are on the way.

And you people wonder why we keep losing elections.

[Zomby Woof]

Yuppie's eponym

Young Urban Professional, not "young up and coming".

[Classical_Liberal]

14. There is no confederate flag strategy

Sure Shapton is hooting about it, he knows how weak it will make Dean look in the South if he apoligizes all the time.

"Once you begin bending," he says, "it's 'did you bend today?' or 'I missed the apology, say it again.' Once you start compromising, you lose respect for yourself."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010416&c=5&s=sherman

[Ripley]

20. Al Sharpton is loathed by many southerners, including black ones.

So pretending that Sharpton will even win one vote down here is funny.

[karabekian]

33. articles like this do much more to alienating the souther vote

than any confederate flag flop

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2003/11/9/11440/7514/221?mode=alone;showrate=1#221">From Jackson to Dean

" Because the majority of the voting white population in the south wanted to be able to burn black people alive like pieces of meat, and the Civil Rights Act supported by a demo president (Johnson) and passed by a demo congress, put a stop to this.
The demos have not yet come to terms with the harsh reality behind their loss of the south. To wit, the south is full of racist troglydytes who adore lynching people, who enjoy seeing pregnant women and young students savaged by police dogs, and who think it's wonderful when innocent retarded people are wrongly convicted of heinous crimes and sentenced to death on a regular
basis."

If thats not going to drive away southern voters, I don;t know what will. I know this does not represent liberals but I believe that the (R)'s have created the impresion in the south that this is the way Liberals see them. Fair or not it is something we need to address if we ever hope to regain the south

[Ripley]

35. Your link doesn't work.

For me....it takes me to a search engine.

I'm not sure I understand the point of the article. Are they saying that today the south is full of racist troglydytes who adore lynching people, or are they saying that's the way people outside the south think about the south?

[TLM]

47. Well said... and this is why I think Dean is on the right track...

Not only is he attacking the southern strategy and giving working class southern whites a reason to vote dem... Dean is also dispelling these misconceptions about how the majority of the left views the south.

The fact is that the racist assholes on our side, like the racist assholes on their side, are a relatively small extremist group, and not representative of the majority.

[LeahMira]

51. And this is because...

Al Sharpton is loathed by many southerners, including black ones.
So pretending that Sharpton will even win one vote down here is funny.

OK, I imagine there are some people who don't like Al Sharpton and some who do. But explain why he is "loathed" by southerners. What has he done to southerners in particular?

Not even one vote?

[WhosNext]

42. Stupid? I think it's absolutely BRILLIANT

I'm glad Dean is trying to win back the "Solid South". I wish Al Sharpton would STFU honestly.

[Forkboy]

50. Well that's nice of you

you tell one poster to leave and another man to STFU.Have a hard time with people who disagree with you perhaps?

[jbutsz]

54. Wrong, please read here about the Southern problem:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=730058

Sharpton's reactionary rhetoric is part of what perpetuates the Southern problem, asserting that addressing poor whites in the South is BAD NEWS for blacks.

Divided and conquered.

[last1standing]

57. I want to know why someone with 26 posts to their credit....

Comes in here stirring up the embers of an old story and then doesn't even have the decency to respond to other posters of the thread.

I'd call this flamebait.