I'm liking Dean more all the time.
Nov. 5th, 2003 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdDean takes heat for remark about Confederate flags, pickup trucks
By The Washington Post
November 5, 2003
BOSTON - Former Vermont governor Howard Dean came under a fierce attack Tuesday night from Democratic rivals who demanded that he apologize for saying last week that he wanted to be the candidate for "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
Dean, saying, "I'm no bigot," declined to apologize for the comment and told his rivals the Democrats will never recapture the White House until they find a way to appeal to working class whites in the South.
"I make no apologizes for reaching out to poor whites," he said.
The fireworks came during a candidate debate aimed at young voters and hosted by CNN and Rock the Vote. They were triggered by a pointed question from a young African American in the audience who said he was "extremely offended" by Dean's statement, which was made to an Iowa reporter last week.
In his defense, Dean invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who he said talked of bringing together the children of slave owners and the children of slaves.
But barely were the words out of his mouth when Al Sharpton leaped into the fray. Last week Sharpton said Dean was embracing anti-black policies and he escalated his criticism Tuesday night.
His voice rising, Sharpton called the Confederate flag "America's swastika" and accused Dean of misquoting King and said of Dean's flag comment, "I think it is insensitive and you ought to apologize for it. You are not a bigot, but you appear to be too arrogant to say I'm wrong."
When Dean again tried to defend himself, Sharpton said he sounded more like "Stonewall Jackson than Jesse Jackson" and accused Dean of stereotyping Southern whites by suggesting they all display the Confederate flag on their pickups.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., then called on Dean to apologize. Dean refused, saying, "I was not wrong, John Edwards." Edwards then replied, "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need."
Asked about past marijuana use, Edwards, Dean and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said they had used the drug. Sharpton, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Wesley Clark said they had not. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., answered the same, although he apologized as he did so. Former senator Carol Moseley Braun declined to answer.
Yes!
Never apologize, especially when you aren't wrong!
The Dems lost the South to the Republicans because the Republicans managed to tap the white anger that schools were deteriorating, blacks were taking the jobs for less pay, and that women weren't keeping the men as comfortable.
What the Democrats need to do to get the South back is address the problems that concern the voters most:
Am I going to keep my job, or will it get sent to some Third World Country?
Can I pay my bills?
Why aren't my kids safe in school? Why are there shootings and homemade bombs and kids throwing desks at teachers and grand melees at the flagpole?
What happens if we get sick? We don't have insurance and can't afford a doctor.
These questions cut across color lines, across gender lines.
The Democrats need to address this, and the hopelessness that pervades the working class. And not just address, but actively propose answers for these questions and problems.
But in order to do that, the Democrats have to convince working class/poor men that they aren't out only for women and academics and blacks and queers. That the Democrats do have morals and aren't out to destroy the country, or steal all the bread from the workingman's hands to give to the shiftless and idle. They have to drop the anti-military stance, because for many in the poor areas the military is the only ticket out of poverty they'll ever have a shot at.
They have to convince the men that they will DO something and not just whine. For all that Bush has made a hash of things, he is certainly doing stuff.
By The Washington Post
November 5, 2003
BOSTON - Former Vermont governor Howard Dean came under a fierce attack Tuesday night from Democratic rivals who demanded that he apologize for saying last week that he wanted to be the candidate for "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
Dean, saying, "I'm no bigot," declined to apologize for the comment and told his rivals the Democrats will never recapture the White House until they find a way to appeal to working class whites in the South.
"I make no apologizes for reaching out to poor whites," he said.
The fireworks came during a candidate debate aimed at young voters and hosted by CNN and Rock the Vote. They were triggered by a pointed question from a young African American in the audience who said he was "extremely offended" by Dean's statement, which was made to an Iowa reporter last week.
In his defense, Dean invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who he said talked of bringing together the children of slave owners and the children of slaves.
But barely were the words out of his mouth when Al Sharpton leaped into the fray. Last week Sharpton said Dean was embracing anti-black policies and he escalated his criticism Tuesday night.
His voice rising, Sharpton called the Confederate flag "America's swastika" and accused Dean of misquoting King and said of Dean's flag comment, "I think it is insensitive and you ought to apologize for it. You are not a bigot, but you appear to be too arrogant to say I'm wrong."
When Dean again tried to defend himself, Sharpton said he sounded more like "Stonewall Jackson than Jesse Jackson" and accused Dean of stereotyping Southern whites by suggesting they all display the Confederate flag on their pickups.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., then called on Dean to apologize. Dean refused, saying, "I was not wrong, John Edwards." Edwards then replied, "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need."
Asked about past marijuana use, Edwards, Dean and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said they had used the drug. Sharpton, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Wesley Clark said they had not. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., answered the same, although he apologized as he did so. Former senator Carol Moseley Braun declined to answer.
Yes!
Never apologize, especially when you aren't wrong!
The Dems lost the South to the Republicans because the Republicans managed to tap the white anger that schools were deteriorating, blacks were taking the jobs for less pay, and that women weren't keeping the men as comfortable.
What the Democrats need to do to get the South back is address the problems that concern the voters most:
Am I going to keep my job, or will it get sent to some Third World Country?
Can I pay my bills?
Why aren't my kids safe in school? Why are there shootings and homemade bombs and kids throwing desks at teachers and grand melees at the flagpole?
What happens if we get sick? We don't have insurance and can't afford a doctor.
These questions cut across color lines, across gender lines.
The Democrats need to address this, and the hopelessness that pervades the working class. And not just address, but actively propose answers for these questions and problems.
But in order to do that, the Democrats have to convince working class/poor men that they aren't out only for women and academics and blacks and queers. That the Democrats do have morals and aren't out to destroy the country, or steal all the bread from the workingman's hands to give to the shiftless and idle. They have to drop the anti-military stance, because for many in the poor areas the military is the only ticket out of poverty they'll ever have a shot at.
They have to convince the men that they will DO something and not just whine. For all that Bush has made a hash of things, he is certainly doing stuff.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 10:48 am (UTC)But yeah, I was glad to hear Dean stick to his guns on that one.
I'm registered Libertarian... but I live in Pennsylvania. So I'll probably end up voting Democrat in the '04 election. I'd really like for it not to just be the same damn thing with a different party name (Lieberman, Kerry).
no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 11:01 am (UTC)(Where's Art Buchwald when we need him?)
I'm a lifelong (27 years) Republican, and I'm getting ready to vote Democrat. I want change, dammit.
The problem is, I'm cynical enough to think that change will only come when the Oligarchs/Illuminati are forced into it. I don't actually think a Democrat will win. (and with the new voting machines, maybe never again...)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 11:16 am (UTC)And I have to say, oddly, that I can easily picture Bush saying, "Booga!"
no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 11:43 am (UTC)And yeah, someone needs to do a soundbite of Bush yelling "booga!"
no subject
Date: 2003-11-05 11:59 am (UTC)Just missed the chance to send someone with a long-range directional mic to see if he pulled an Hallowe'en stunts. Seems like that would have been a good time to catch a "booga"...
Correct versus right
Date: 2003-11-05 07:41 pm (UTC)The Dems lost the South to the Republicans because the Republicans managed to tap the white anger that schools were deteriorating, blacks were taking the jobs for less pay, and that women weren't keeping the men as comfortable.
-- but I'm not sure that you are *right*.
How much of that anger, especially as expressed e.g. in Confederate flags on one's pickup, boils down to white males who no longer can count on special treatment for being white and male? The capitalist flip side of "Blacks taking the jobs for less pay" is "white men used to be overpaid for those jobs, and in a freer market the cost of the job goes down."
Have your schools truly deteriorated, or have they regressed to the mean between the old segregated black and white schools?
I went to a first-rate suburban public high school and my daughter is now going to a first-rate suburban public high school, and her school is *much* better, the work *much* harder, than what I had. I see nothing approaching deterioration, quite the contrary. Yes, this is a top-of-the-line school, but mine was back then, too: I'm pretty sure I'm comparing apples and apples, and today's apple is a better apple.
I may have to think more and post something in my LJ.
Re: Correct versus right
Date: 2003-11-05 08:00 pm (UTC)You suggest the white men were overpaid. Or maybe they were making a living wage, and employers found that people would work for less than that. (As has happened across the country)
I've seen school deterioration, even in the 6 years between my tenure and my sister's. And that had nothing to do with integration, since her class was as white as mine.
My kids, well, some of it is more intensive than what I had, some of it is much less rigorous. And how good is the school when the teacher doesn't notice your kid is missing until after lunch?
My husband has seen first-hand deterioration of the education in the system he works in. He says his students have steadily declined in basic education levels since he started working there 5 years ago. He figures by the time he retires, he'll have to teach his physics class taught their multiplication tables first.
Segregation is still the de facto rule down here. It may not be the law, but if you're white, your kids are home-schooled or go to Christian school. (Or you live on the better side of town, which has a 70:30 white:black ratio, and where your kids don't get their heads cut open with thrown bricks playing with the neighbor kids) The richer folks, who go to private school route also vote no on property tax increases for the public schools.
We're definitely comparing apples and apples, but yours is a nice, highly polished red delicious, and mine's a sour wormy windfall. Which one is going to produce a better dumpling?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-06 05:53 am (UTC)I'm sure you meant to say "the Democrats have to convince white straight working class/poor men". Didn't you?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-06 06:02 am (UTC)We're discussing white anger among the working poor of the South. That kind of makes "white straight workingman" the default.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-06 07:08 am (UTC)You're implying here that black men aren't working class/poor: that queers aren't working class/poor. That was why I asked what you meant to say.
I think that what's she saying
Date: 2003-11-12 06:31 am (UTC)Please don't think that *I* think that welfare laws are particularly for African Americans. I just think that is a popular perception among disenfranchised whites, and not just in the south.
The problem is that the Democrats don't know how to address issues of class, which cut across boundaries of ethnicity and sexual orientation. The Republicans have a classic divide and conquer strategy: Give the rich what they want and entice the not-so-rich to your side with calls of God and country. And all the while, subtly race-bait so as to keep the disenfrancised divided against one another so that they can't muster the power to stop the Republicans even if the disenfranchised finally recognize they're being take for a ride what with the tax code and the Homeland Security Act and prayer in schools and defense of marriage and whatnot.