Dean's Sistah Soulja moment?

I don't know if this has been considered but could the Dean confederate flag thing be Dean's Sistah Soulja moment? Remember when Clinton spoke out and criticized Sistah Soulja during his first prez campaign? It was thought by some that, whether calculated or not, it gave him some cred with the conservative dems and centrist republicans. Dean has been widely painted by the mainstream press as very far to the left on the liberal spectrum, which of course he's not. Could this be, calculated or not, a way for him to get out from under the media's scripted lefty label they've hung on him? If so, I don't believe Kerry was helping himself by calling Dean an NRA candidate. Could Dean be so confident that he's thinking ahead to the general election already? Was this his Sistah Soulja moment?

painstaking and hard won. DEAN wiped out those victories in one fell swoop. He canNOT take a pass on this. Sholjah, Schmouljah.

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He forced a connection which doesn't really exist. The flag waivers are a tiny subset of the class he wants to reach, and he probably turned off way more people in that class (white and black) than he reached out to.

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would reach ALL THE WAY over to the folks with the flags. That includes everyone in between.

and South Carolina.

Have you ever even visited?

I just heard Begala -- who grew up in Texas, remember -- say again that the whole Confed flag issue is really stupid.

And now Tony Blankley is saying the Dems who are attacking Dean are playing the race card. I hate it when Repugs are right.

Eloriel

Thanks. Not everyone who votes Republican in the south waves the rebel flag and many would consider it offensive to have it assumed that they did.

The unrelenting disregard for what was really said and what was really meant, based on an irrational hatred of Mr. Dean qualifies as bigotry.

How did he wipe them out?

Didn't think so...

But you really got a hard-on for Dean.

as soon as I heard he wouldn't apologize.

It's a pretty stupid issue to take a stand on. Dean is pretty damn good at shooting his self in the foot.

,

"You appear to be too arrogant to say you're wrong."-------SHARPTON.

I fail to see the relevance of Mr. Sharpton's remark to your subject line.

BTW, it is Mr. Dean who is attempting inclusivity, not me. I have no patience with people who arrogantly mis-construe Mr. Dean's words, when the words themselves, and subsequent comments by others have shown their true meaning.

This may not only make him more competitive in the south, but may wash away all of the McGovern crap DUers have spewed for months.

Whether Dean is supposedly Mondale or Gingrich, one thing is for certain. His campaign is kicking the crap out of their opponents.

He referred to Southerners as "Confed Flag Decal" Types...

AT least that's what Dean and his supporters here on DU keep saying...

IF Dean REALLY meant to reach out to Southern Rebel types (which are a small part of the Southern Population) then he should be talkingTO THEM DIRECTLY and not ABOUT them to his Northern rank and file. His comments can only appear patronizing to those he is supposedly appealing to.

IF Dean meant to talk about low wage earners in the South who have fallen for the GOP's wedge politics then he had NO BUSINESS bringing in the Confed Flag.

1) It makes the newscycle about Dean
2) It destroys the "too liberal" nonsense (peddled by anti-Dean Democrats of all people) once and for all
3) It enables Dean to reach out to southern whites, something Democrats are failing miserably at as the DNC hemorrages seats in the south.

He disses them in ways that they are too stupid or blinded by their own racism to recognize. Rush can even make the poor and unemployed feel like they one of the upper 2% who need tax cuts...eventhough many of them are not even paying taxes.

He disses them in ways that they are too stupid or blinded by their own racism to recognize. Rush can even make the poor and unemployed feel like they one of the upper 2% who need tax cuts...eventhough many of them are not even paying taxes.

. That is why we have a republican governer, as you well know. You guys have to lie your asses off to make these points over and over. If you aren't lying. You are repeating lies.

Yes, I think so. There is no downside for Dean on this. Everyone acknowledges that he isn't a racist. And he stood up for his comments.

The others look like a) they're pandering or b) desperate.

Are those who already hate Dean.

It's convienient indignation.

P.S. Dean is getting good reviews, among the media editorials, for standing up for himself. The only ones getting attacked are those who attacked him last night.

this feigned outrage is getting tiresome.

Julie

Going to Idaho, addressing Southern strategy issues, not ceding any state, and his NRA rating and knowing how gun owners from rural states feel are all pluses.

Trust me. I send money, go to meet-ups. I know what Dean meant and think it needs to be said. Thing is there are about 50 other ways to say the same thing and he decided to go the most controversial route. Why not say "alright, I think what I meant was right but I apologize for the way I worded it. How about we change 'confederate flag' to 'NASCAR' and be done with it?". Hell, while Dean was addressing that black man I felt he was doing an ad for NAAWP. I'm thinking of rooting for a Clark/Kerry ticket as a result of this.

RE: Confederate Flag issue

As a black voter and Dean supporter, I would once again like to commend Dr. Dean for bringing this issue to the fore, and urge him: DON'T BACK DOWN!!

DON'T APOLOGIZE!

This issue will not go away, but Dr. Dean needs to stay strong and not waver. It took balls of steel for him to come as far as he has with it, and to not knuckle under to Sharpton and Edwards.

I would prefer that he not even repeat the line about "I think the Confederate flag is a loathsome symbol..." because that is an insult to the very folks he is trying to reach out to.

He might say: "I understand why many African-Americans and descendants of Union Army soldiers would be offended by the flag, BUT we need to put the Civil War behind us and unite around our common interests...." etc., etc.

The primary theme of interracial solidarity on the issues of economic and social justice is key. Getting this right --- in the South --- is ESSENTIAL for a decisive Democratic victory in 2004 and beyond.

Compared to that, the Rebel flag controversy is trifling.

GO DEAN!!

you've posted this several times now.

Posting something from a blog by someone who "says" they are black does not constitute proof of any sort.

I wonder if I could get away with calling the guy who asked the question last night a plant, question his sincerity or his take on the issue.

I have a right to question the sincerity of this outrage too.

Please be more specific.

. Probably a few freepers as well.

This is good.

I do think Dean wants this in the news. I just don't see how it hurts him.

There is no downside whatsoever.

Where is the outrage? Only from people with vested interests. Don't let people here sway you. They're all jealous that their candidates are losing.

I'm 34 and have always voted since I was 18 but I admit this is the 1st one I've been this involved in. I admit, I'm scared to death of the shrub winning again and, like I said, while I think what Dean meant was a good thing, even I could've worded it better.

Dean is going to come out of this one all right. I'm not saying he's out of the woods yet, but it looks okay, and I still think he'll get the union endorsement on Thursday, which will be huge.

As others have pointed out, the attacks over the flag statement look desperate because they are based on distortions and flat out untruths. Dean is not a racist and EVERYONE knows it. The underlying message of his statement is that poor southern whites should be voting Democratic because the Democratic party better represents their economic interests. And he's RIGHT. The more this gets talked about, the more that right message filters out to voters.

They're quoting him directly. He has admitted what he said. He won't apologize.

Nobody accused him of being a racist.

when he quoted MLK and then said, "You can't bring a confederate flag to the table of brotherhood"?

What exactly do you think Dean should apologize for? He already repudiated the confederate flag (I can't remember the exact words he used, but they were strong.)

What else do you think he should say?

...if you want to talk about bringing people together, you don't bring them together by embracing (or not challenging) the symbols of racism.

To say that you're "for" the person who rallies around a symbol of racism absolutely begs the questions, "are you going to ask that person to put down that symbol?", "how do you intend appeal to that person (ie, are you going to stop talking about race to attact them)?", and "who exactly do you think these people are (are you paiting with too broad of a brush)?"

I don't know what Edwards's question was precisely, but I suspect that it was something like, "do you appologize for using a symbol of racism to portray a southern rural poor people?" I agree with that. I am all for giving dean an apportunity to rephrase with more precision what he meant, but dean stands firm on what he said.

Furthermore, I think it's enormously revealing that when dean was asked what he'd do to reach out to African Americans, he told us what he'd do to reach out to white people. He's totally tone deaf on the issue of race.

And furthermore, when Edwards said that Dean was engaging in a sort of a hamfisted anthropoligical investigation into what it means to be southern and poor, it reminded me a little of how Dean asked Yale if he could live with black roommates. It's like a big experiment for him, and he's jumping to conclusions, and he's wrong.

Oh, one more thing about this: Dean talked about working in an inner city school I've heard him talk about this before. He throws a bone to educators when he talks about it. He says, "that was too hard...I couldn't do it for more than three months...went skiing, worked on Wall St, and became a Doctor because that was too hard." I think we're right back at the anthropological experiment, and I think Dean isn't working hard enough to figure out the truth of what he's dispassionately observing.

because Edwards himself has said that the war of the rebel flag is "a frivolous culture war issue" used to divide the South, and that it is not as important as economic issues. He is also lying when he says that only a minority of white voters cares about this. How the hell does explain the Georgia election, the the Mississippis and South Carolina referendum. I saw him say this on an interview on TV.

who's making a dog's breakfast of the issue. Dean is the one reviving this as an issue.

Furthermore, Edwards had stated support for the SC boycott at a time when Dean's camp was saying they were still consdering it. So I'm gonna say Edwards is cool on this issue.

"Killing your parents and pleading mercy on the court for being an orphan." Basically Dean said the same thing as Edwards, but according to you Dean is making it an issue. What gaul? Why the hell should anyone take you seriously? In truth Edwards is being a petty hypocrite, since by this standard Edwards made it an issue as well.

is not going to hurt Dean with mainsteam America.

Bill C owes Sister Souljah big time.

stradled. There were plenty of blacks over the age of 30 (millions, in fact) who agreed with Clinton that militant rap wasn't helpful to the black community.

I can't imagine there are more than 75,000 black people in America who really don't have any problem with the idea of being 'for' the southern white male working class confederate flag waivers (of which, there might only be 750,000 or less).

(I suspect some people will try to rebut this argument by contesting my numbers. Ignore that for a moment and realize that Clinton was drawing a line that fell within the spectrum of opinion held by black democrats. Dean was drawing a line that runs through the middle of the white left, and almost all black voters plus many white voters are going to be on the other side.)

Dean has managed to piss off not only a large percentage of the black electorate, but a lot of white liberals will have a hard time with this also.

I think it's a good thing he said what he said, and then wouldn't apologize. He's declaring who he is and what he stands for. He is clearly delineating his candidacy. He is willing to risk the Democratic base of blacks and white liberals to go out on a limb for a small group of disaffected Republican votes.

This notion that we are taking the black vote for granted because we are trying to appeal to poor whites is really off. Would that black/liberal voters be better off voting Republican? Certainly not. Dean is reaching out to voters whom we all agree we need. We cannot afford NOT to reach out to everyone this next election because it is so crucial, and that includes the white southern vote. Instead of saying the democrats don't deserve the black vote, what Dean (and we should be) saying is that the Republicans don't deserve the white southern vote.

in American history might be taking a risk, no?

We do not all agree we need southerners with confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks. They haven't voted for us in the past and they won't in the future. Howard Dean would be better off shoring up the real Democratic base, not "reaching out" to a subset of people who's core belief systems are not those of the Democratic party. Howard Dean IS running for the nomination as a Democrat, isn't he?

in the South. come now? That is why this is retarded. Sharpton might write it off, but those two? I find it likely their DLC advisors are actually moles for Bush, so I find this self destructiveness to be sad, sad, sad!

say anything about wanting the votes of southerners who sport confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks.

You have put a phrase in quotes that I didn't say. Don't put words in my mouth.

and divisive culture war issue used to get poor Southerners to vote against their economic interests. What do you think he meant when he said that?

but cynical partisans of other cynical candidates.

.

Sister Souljah was an easy target, honestly: she'd said so many inflammatory, indefensible things that criticizing her was as safe as saying "8 Simple Rules is cynically milking John Ritter's death for ratings". Obvious.

Talking about the confederate flag, on the other hand, not so obvious. It's been said before: all most people are gonna get from this is "Dean is somehow associated with the confederate flag," because they're not gonna look into it real deep. That's not good for Dean. All press is not good press.

So, the sound bites: "Clinton dissed some militant black lady" vs. "Dean likes the confederate flag or something".

Neither sound bite is true, of course; I'm saying this is what I'm afraid the mainstream will hear.

and plan to back the nominee 100%. But does anyone have a link to the comment Howard Dean made about the conferederate flag I keep hearing about?

''I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,'' the former Vermont governor was quoted as saying in Saturday's Des Moines Register.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-dems02.html

Gov. Howard Dean's speech to the Democratic National Committee
February 21, 2003, Washington, D.C.
. . .
"Let me tell you something else I'm going to do. One of the things I thought
was terrific about Bill Clinton was that when he became President in 1992, he
said that his Cabinet would look like the rest of America -- and he did it. He
did it.

I want all of our institutions of higher learning, - our law schools, our
medical schools, our best universities - to look like the rest of America. I
thought that one of the most despicable moments of this President's
Administration was three weeks ago when, on national prime time television, he used the word
"quotas" seven times. The University of Michigan does not now have quotas,
has never had quotas, and "quota" is a race-loaded word designed to appeal to
people's fears of losing their jobs.

I intend to talk about race during this election in the South. The
Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us, and I'm
going to bring us together. Because you know what? White folks in the South who drive
pick-up trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting
with us because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids
need better schools too."

He got a standing ovation for this statement in February 2003. Amazing what a little spin can accomplish.

qualifying statements, NO disclaimers explaining that poor Southern whites who vote GOP (and whom he believes stick Confederate flag decals on their pick-up trucks) needed health insurance as much as poor blacks.

The short comment from the Des Moines Register is not taken out of context and not spun. Dean said it as reported.

You don't know what he said before and after, if anything. You literally cannot judge whether it was taken out of context or not.

Further, he has said repeatedly, in stump speech after stump speech, the following:

"I intend to talk about race in this election in the south because the Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us. And I'm going to bring us together, because you know what? White folks in the south who drive pickups trucks with confederate flags decals in the back ought to be voting with us and not them, because their kids don't have health insurance either and their kids need better schools too." (big applause)

It's intellectually dishoneset -- but a nice try -- to try to claim tht he meant anything vaguely different from that. He has a RECORD of exactly what he means, over many months if not a year or more.

Eloriel

is the poster above citing a speech from Febuary when the current flap is over a statement Dean made a couple of days ago.

It's not the same statement.

I was watching the NBC evening news and the phrase they used, in big black letters up on the screen, was the phrase from the Des Moines Register. Out of context or not, this is the controversy Dean and his campaign are going to have to deal with.

''I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,''

It was the Sister Soulgia moment of Kerry, Gephardt, Sharpton and Edwards, with Dean being Sister Souljia.

I mean, having Sharpton attack him no doubt helped him with White Voters. I hate it put in those terms, but I think it helped.

...voters.

I don't think he's turning off a lot of white voters when he talks about race by saying things like he fights for the rights of white men in his office hiring (as opposed to white women whom he thought were over-represented).

The problem with this is that he might be turning OFF a lot of black democratic voters, which only hurts his opponents, and particularly Sharpton and Edwards.