Howard's End
- Wade
Today's story: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean apologizes for confederate flag remark. Well, of course he does.
The story, in a nutshell: in an attempt to hold his ground as the frontrunner for the '04 nomination, Dean remarked last week that he was the "candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks." An obvious attempt to reach out towards male caucasian voters in the southern U.S., Dean tried his best to play himself off as a good ol' boy, just itching to slide in through the window of the General Lee and jump over some gulch with Tom Wopat.
Not a bad idea-- the south, once an electoral shoo-in for Democratic presidential candidates, has been leaning more towards Republican candidates since 1992. Dean wanted to convice voters in that area that he's more like them than the sitting president-- who, despite being from the south, is more for the companies that manufacture pickups than those that drive them.
Dean's mistake is also obvious. The Confederate flag? I can just imagine how his campaign manager's stomach dropped when he heard Howard say that. The Confederate flag has, right or wrong, become the symbol of the racism that existed in the southern U.S. in the past, and even today. Aligning yourself with such a symbol is borderline suicidal for a candidate for elected office.
What will shake out of this? I predict Dean will drop out of the race. Is that fair? Probably not. All of us are guilty of speaking without thinking. It's actually refreshing to think that Dean was speaking from his heart and mind, instead of the generic script that his speechwriters give him. But misspeaking, even slightly, in the U.S. political system is a recipe for disaster-- and Howard just cooked his own goose, southern-style.
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