Barbour's use of state flag could win or lose votes - MS gov race

Barbour's use of state flag could win or lose votes

By Julie Goodman
jgoodman@clarionledger.com
and Patrice Sawyer
psawyer@clarionledger.com

Some of Republican gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour's campaign material features the state flag and its Confederate battle emblem, a symbol many black voters find offensive.

Barbour wears a lapel pin with the U.S. and state flags and he is in a photograph on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a neo-Confederate group accused of racist views. Barbour says he doesn't know anything about the council. The picture was taken at a council-sponsored barbecue in July used to raise money for private academy school buses.

But Barbour says he wants to be the state's most successful Republican vote-getter among African Americans and has held closed-door strategy meetings with minorities. If elected, he says he will create a "colorblind" state government.

To some observers, Barbour's strategy could cost him votes, but to others it could give Barbour an edge in a tight race with Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove

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http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0310/01/m03.html

stolen unabashedly from atrios.blogspot.com, who has more good stuff re:



:)

When MS voters had the chance to vote on the flag in 2001 didn't they vote like 63% to keep the flag? I also heard anecdotal cases of black voters in Mississippi yawning over the whole fiag thing.

can attend events sponsored by the CCC, and pose for countless pictures with members and never have a clue as to what this group stands for? I guess they didn't see the Confederate flags and the sheets hanging in on the coat rack.

I take it as Proof that the bar has been lowered sufficiently.