First, I want to tell you that the volunteers and staff in the Dean campaign were not at all happy about the bungled confederate flag message. These people took these comments VERY seriously. It's only now that the explaination is filtering through the troops that people are getting comfortable again but I must say that the flow of volunteers has, if anything, increased.
The confederate flag issue shows the strengths and weaknesses of the Dean campaign. First, let's remember that Howard Dean was the governor of a rural state, albeit a quirky rural state. In Vermont and Maine, just as in the rest of rural America, serious gun control is a non-starter. Yet Howard Dean is a physician with urban emergency room experience from the city with the tightest gun control laws in the Nation. Had Howard Dean stayed on Park Avenue, I am relatively sure that he would be a supporter of strict gun control. To be an outsider politicial in a state where third-generation residents are still called "flatlanders" he had to adapt at least a little. Therefore, federal gun control went out the window and Dean maneuvered a path through liberal and concervative issues during the great Clinton Sellout.
What resulted is a presidential candidate who started with the stated intention of using his experience among rural voters to win at least some of those people back the the party of the blue states. He started out wanting to be the "candidate for guys with gun racks in the backs of their pickups". Then Dean added to that image a reference to the common confederate flag bumper stickers seen across Dixie and Democrats loved it because he was talking about winning back the South from racist Republican demagogues. Then he simplified it in an interview to "confederate flags in the back of their pickup trucks" and people really bit down hard on the issue.
I think Dean started out the right way during the CNN/Rock The Vote debate by defending his remarks. The problem was, as it has been with all his engagements with the media, that after he has succinctly stated his premise, Dean hits these dreadful rhetorical dry spells. It's as if for some reason he is either not expecting to or not ready to expand on his message - even given golden opportunities. Nobody thinks that Dean is a racist (although he has certainly left the impression with a few that he is pandering to racists) but Dean was just unprepared to expand on the theme that Republicans have been using racist demagoguery to fool white rural voters. I can't understand why he was so unprepared, any more than I can understand why he was unprepared to repeatedly slam the Bush administration's Iraq policy during his first "Meet The Press" interview while Tim Russert was jabbering away about exact numbers of troops.
Nobody sees what's involved in the confederate flag issue more clearly than a liberal in the Northwest. Up here there is no question about what it means to have the stars and bars on your truck. Nobody up here can claim to be celebrating Dixie's history. The confederate flag is understood to be a white supremacist symbol in our neck of the woods and if I thought that Howard Dean was defending the confederate flag, I would leave the campaign without a second thought.
I think Howard Dean made a perfectly defensible statement and that he could have used the controversy to make a very positive statement. I think he's obviously right about Republican demagogues separating white rural voters from their economic interests. I think Howard Dean's approach to civil rights of first acknowledging that there is a social advantage to being white and a disadvantage to being black is a more honest place to start than talking about court decisions and regulations. But, I have to admit that Dean has consistently failed to develop persuasive language on a range of topics and this persistent failure has hurt the campaign. It will kill the campaign if he can't fix the problem. He has to learn that he will be required to fight harder and harder to make sure that voters don't misunderstand him. For some reason he hasn't yet. I really, really don't understand it and it plagues me.
I hope the problem is just a hangover from the fact that Dean is a doctor (and thus not used to being disagreed with) who governed a small state where all press is local and that press always allows a politician several bites at the apple to get his message right. Truly, I do not think that the confederate flag quote represents any shift to the right or attempt at demagoguery. Dean's statement was perfectly consistent with statements he has made all year. It was just much more badly worded and poorly thought out.
What can I say? Every volunteer and staff member I've met sees this episode as a terrible blunder and a terrible disservice to their efforts. Nobody wants this. It's heartening to see columnists and pundits actually defending Dean but this has cost him money and support.
Nonetheless, I am voting today for Dean not to accept matching funds. The other campaigns are just ridiculous and Dean's support is still rising.
peace,
boddi