Again I'm a little behind the times on this one, but apparently it's bad that Howard Dean said, "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." That's bad because, naturally, the Confederate flag is a symbol of pure evil and guys with it in the back of their truck don't deserve to vote.
But, it turns out, they do. And while I certainly have ambivalent feelings (at best) towards the stars and bars, I'm not sure we should write those voters off. Joan Walsh, editor of Salon News, wrote on the subject today, crystalizing some of my reactions to Deans statement. "After his remarks last week drew criticism, Dean released a statement saying: "I want people with Confederate flags on their trucks to put down those flags and vote Democratic -- because the need for quality healthcare, jobs and a good education knows no racial boundaries."
Dean put his finger on something crucial that explains the Democrats' lack of nationwide mass appeal: While they correctly addressed the problems of racism from the 1960s on, they lost sight of the issues of class, which don't always dovetail with race. Defending his remarks yesterday in Iowa, Dean explained: "What Franklin Roosevelt did was to get the Southern white working class to vote with the Southern African-American working class," said Dean, about the former Democratic president. "The only time we're ever going to make progress in this country is when black people and white people and brown people work together and put race aside." I happen to believe that, too. It's disturbing if other candidates don't."
Anyway, Dean moves a little up the list with that comment.
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