South Carolina Reacts to Dean Comments

We've heard from lots of candidates and pundits about Dean's Confederate flag remarks, but we've heard precious little from actual Southern Democratic voters.

From the point of view of one South Carolina blogger the response to Dean's comments is a mixture of good news and bad news.

Yesterday's news: Dean is the only major candidate with NO OFFICE in South Carolina. In the e-mails circulated among Democratic activists, the Dean campaign contact information is a phone number with a Vermont (802) area code. I think David Mack is a fine man and a great State Rep. But he can't run a campaign all by himself. Dean has NO PAID SUPPORT STAFF in South Carolina - which many view as a sign of unseriousness by his campaign.


Todays: In other SC news, Dean For America has hired a deputy state director and is in the process of hiring a director. Shortly we will open offices in Columbia and Charleston.

but they are still 4-6 months behind the other candidates down here.

And many down here think the poor mouth strategy was to justify skipping the state entirely.

He is saying the party needs the people who left to come back to the party, but this flag and US flag makes some people nuts. Drape a flag over your self and your a 'good American" Crazy.Hitler used the same GD thing. Ever see his flags.

in SC.

I heard someone say it's an open primary, but if it were, they couldn't seat delegates to the convention, so I don't think it is.

Can anyone clarify?

We don't have party registration in South Carolina. Anyone can walk in and ask to vote in the primary. If you vote in the Dem pres primary, you can't vote in the GOP pres primary, but this year that is a moot point.

State and county primaries have both Dem and GOP on the same day, so the choice realy does matter then.

Party rules don't ban open primaries. If so, New Hampshire would be out of play.

By the way, anybody think Dean's trying to get the Republican white vote in the open primary in SC (which will go Bush in the general election)?

The real Confederistas are just as pissed at Dean.

The Kamp Kommander of the SC Sons of Confederate Veterans said as much.

BEsides, if the man who attacks everyone not named Howard Dean as "Bush-Lite," then any appeal to Bush voters in South Carolina is going to backfire on him.

At least, that's how it was when I lived in Michigan in the run up to "Farce 2000"

We have switched to a caucus. partly because state law doesn't allow for party registration, and both parties have had their status quo rocked by "outsiders" upsetting the party favorites here, like for example, when Jesse Jackson clocked front runner Dukakis in 1988.

.

but that doesn't change the fact that Dean is 4-6 months behind the other campaigns in establishing a presence in South Carolina.

Even Clark has an office and paid staff on the ground.

Good points:

1. Dean is the only major candidate with NO OFFICE in South Carolina. In the e-mails circulated among Democratic activists, the Dean campaign contact information is a phone number with a Vermont (802) area code. I think David Mack is a fine man and a great State Rep. But he can't run a campaign all by himself. Dean has NO PAID SUPPORT STAFF in South Carolina - which many view as a sign of unseriousness by his campaign.


This is something we in NC have been wondering about for some time. Dean should have set up office a long time ago, but Dean supporters from GA and NC have been working hard in SC to help spread the word.


2. Dean is the only major candidate who has REFUSED TO BUY THE VOTER FILE from the S.C. Democratic Party. If Dean wants to win the votes of Southerners, how come he hasn't done anything to find out who they are, where they live, and how often they vote?


As of about three weeks ago, the Dean campaign WAS in the process of purchasing this information. Some Dean supporters in NC had already purchased it.


3. Dean supporters in South Carolina have been running a whispering campaign to trash the S.C Presidential Primary, telling the national press that we don't have the money to fund it and will have to pull the plug on the primary. Such complaints were discussed at a recent SC Executive Committee Meeting - in plain view of an Associated Press reporter, and the fear that the story would make the paper created a panic in Burlington that prompted a series of peace offerings and make-nice phone calls to SC Democrats.


This is not an organized effort as far as I know. At least it has never been stated among the NC Dean supporters who have gone to SC week after week to help out.

<i>2. Dean is the only major candidate who has REFUSED TO BUY THE VOTER FILE from the S.C. Democratic Party. If Dean wants to win the votes of Southerners, how come he hasn't done anything to find out who they are, where they live, and how often they vote?

As of about three weeks ago, the Dean campaign WAS in the process of purchasing this information. Some Dean supporters in NC had already purchased it.<i>

ONE WEEK AGO, I had dinner with the Field Director of the SC Democratic Party - he's the guy in charge of selling the SC Voter File, and he told me Dean had not bought it yet.

I refuse to give Dean a pass because he is "in the process" of doing stuff. A purchase is a purchase. You either buy something or you don't. You either open an office or you don't. It didn't take the other campaigns six months to get on there feet in South Carolina. Wesley Clark managed to do it in a month.

Dean knows that he can't win South Carolina, and that the winner of that primary will be annointed as the "Anti-Dean" candidate in the media. That's why they have refused to spend money down there. And that is why they trash the primary in order to justify their lack of presence in the state.

I don't know, skipping SC seems like a big gamble. I think he will take NH, but I don't know about Iowa. Then to not show up in SC at all? It's the springboard to the southern primaries. Is everyone just giving it to Edwards, so why bother?

:shrug:

Can you show me some kind of evidence of this trashing the SC primary?

I can't fault you for most of what you said, but a lot of Dean supporters from THREE states have been working hard on behalf of SC. Some of us are going down there this weekend.

I'm not comfortable naming names. But some of the Paid Members of the Regional Staff have been telling party activists that Dean would be better off if SC canceled their primary.

It broke out into the open at a meeting of the SCDP Executive Committee.

It is not happening at the volunteer or canvassing level. I'm not suggesting that a memo has been sent saying "Trash the primary."

But there are things being done by Dean The Campaign that are incompatible with Dean the Grassroots Movement.

The Wa State campaign office just opened- we have a Feb 7 caucus. At a previous meet-up we were told that by the time the office opens, there is already so much structure in place that we're 6 months ahead of the game.

I don't think any state has been written off but things are happening in unprededented ways.

The question becomes: if reaching up to poor Southern voters was so central to Dean's campaign to warrant a stand (+no retreat) that offended people like me...well, where is that reaching up? Is that a genuine desire to broaden the base of an empty talking point?

Personally, when it comes to broadening the base, I am with Sharpton:

That is why, I say, instead of chasing a few bigots with confederate
flags we ought to be registering and galvanizing our natural base. That
is where our victory lies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17480-2003Oct25.html
And, unlike Dean, on this one Sharpton is actually doing what he's preaching.

And Anti-semitism. He also has made racist comments about Caucasions in the past. He falsely accused a man of rape and never apologized. I don't think we should use him as an example of 'practicing what we preach' KWIM? ;)