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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:31
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Dean regrets, defends Confederate flag remark
quote:
Defends message on civil rights
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean Wednesday said he regretted any hurt his comments on the Confederate flag may have caused, but defended his message on civil rights.
Slammed at a Tuesday night forum by other Democratic candidates for his remark that he wants to be a candidate for "guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks," the former Vermont governor, speaking at a campaign rally at Cooper Union, tried to smooth ruffled Democratic feathers, but staunchly defended efforts to reach out to all Americans.
"I believe that we have one flag in this country -- the flag of the United States of America," he said, echoing words used by some of his critics.
"I believe that the flag of the Confederate States of America is a painful symbol and reminder of racial injustice and slavery which (Abraham) Lincoln denounced from here over 150 years ago," he said, referring to Lincoln's 1860 speech at Cooper Union. "I do not condone the use of the flag of the Confederate States of America."
But Dean did not apologize. He said, "We're not going to win this country, and even worse, Democrats, if we don't have a big tent."
He said, "This country needs to engage in a serious discussion about race and that everyone must participate in that discussion."
Dean said, "I started this discussion in a clumsy way. This discussion will be painful and I regret the pain that I may have caused either to African-American or Southern white voters in the beginning of this discussion. But we need to have this discussion in an honest, open way."
During the Rock the Vote forum at Boston's Faneuil Hall Tuesday night, Dean was criticized by other Democratic candidates for his remarks. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina said, "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do."
He told Dean the remarks were condescending.
"The people I grew up with, the vast majority of them, they don't drive around with Confederate flags on pickup trucks," Edwards said.
On Wednesday, Dean said he understands Edwards' concerns about Northerners telling Southerners how to run their affairs, but said Americans need to know that all citizens "are in this together."
Dean said institutional racism permeates the country, even after the success of the civil rights movement.
"You have a better chance of being called back for a job interview if you are white with a criminal record than you do if you are black with a clean record, never having been arrested or convicted," he said.
He said he is "determined" that no one will be left behind in the discussion on racism, "no matter what their color and where they live."
"This will be a difficult and painful discussion and feelings will be hurt," he said. "... People of good will must stay at the table."
He said Americans must face the problem together "hand in hand" as Lincoln and slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King urged Americans to do.
"We must have the dialogue that Bill Clinton promised us," he said. "We must have that dialogue. And we must continue the dialogue. We must all be at the table." |
The Dems are reaching for the NASCAR vote, a demographic increasingly abandoned by them starting in the '50s. Or, at least, Howard Dean is.
OTOH, it isn't going to win him much support from the elite intelligentsia of the Democratic party like your Maya Angelou's and Barbara Streisands. Can he wrestle the Democratic party away from the ivory tower back into the auto garage?
Time will tell.
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DRoseDARs
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"My god, it's full of peas..."
Jul 2002
time: 21:31
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The "outrage" over Dean's poor choice of words is SO overblown it would almost fit as script material in Kill Bill. Good movie, btw.  Anyway, I'll vote whatever Democrat runs against Bush, regardless. I've had my eye on Dean since I first heard of him months ago, and this little verbal gaffe is just that, a blunder, an honest mistake. Dean is not going to be sporting a gleaming white-hooded robe on Inaguration Day 2005. He isn't going to terrorize Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton by putting burning crosses on their lawns. He's not going to commend Trent Lott nor his idol Strom Thurmond.
It was nothing more than a bone-headed choice of words. Over at DU I've seen too many people with their undergarments wedged firmly up their asscracks over this. I DARE not say this over there, but my god people, pick your Hanes and Foot-of-the-Looms out already 'cause we have less than a year to defeat Bush. Tissy fits like this aren't helpful to that end.
Aside, I'd be happy with a Dean/Clark, Dean/Kunich, or Kunich/Clark Democrat ticket in '04. I haven't really decided if Clark would be better as a President or Vice-President. He strikes me as weak on the domestic side, which is more important to me for the foreseable future. Considering the mess the Boy King has made of our standing in the international community, Clark or Kunich could handle the diplomacy and Clark could give strong counsel for the more agressive stuff.
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Dr Strangelove
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Those sort of guys aren't going to have warm and fuzzy feelings for the governor who was crucial in getting recognition for gay marriages. It seems silly for him to try.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:31
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Rocking Dean
At what was supposed to be a friendly chat with the "youth vote," the Democratic candidates ganged up on the front-runner about his Confederate flag comments.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Josh Benson
Nov. 4, 2003 | BOSTON -- The "Rock the Vote" forum in Boston's Faneuil Hall was supposed to be a feel-good affair, a chance for the candidates to "connect" with America's youth. It was a "Rock the Vote" event in 1992, after all, where Bill Clinton cheerfully told a young crowd that he preferred boxers over briefs.
Front-running candidate Howard Dean found it to be quite different, though, after he came under fierce attack for recent comments that he made about the need to appeal to Southern whites "with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
After the debate, Dean dismissed the criticism as "just political silliness." It's true he'd made similar comments previously about white voters and Confederate flags, with no resulting controversy, and he said that he meant it as a call for a broad Democratic constituency.
But his opponents, who view the former Vermont governor as the candidate to beat, seemed disinclined to offer him the benefit of the doubt.
Rev. Al Sharpton, one of two African-American candidates in the race, led the assault, saying Dean's comments were "more like Stonewall Jackson than Jesse Jackson." Sharpton added, "Most poor Southern whites don't wear a Confederate flag, and you ought not to try to stereotype that," he continued, to hearty applause from the college-age audience.
Dean responded by saying that he too was offended by the flag, but that Democrats needed to appeal to "poor white people" if they were to win a national election.
But Sharpton's criticism was immediately followed by an angry lecture from Sen. John Edwards, who has been outspokenly critical of Dean's comments since they were published Nov. 1 in the Des Moines Register. "The last thing we need in the South is someone like you coming down and telling us what to do," he said, jabbing his finger toward a seated Dean.
"Unless I missed something, Governor Dean still has not said he was wrong," Edwards said. "Were you wrong, Howard?"
Dean shot back: "No, I wasn't, John Edwards, because people who vote who fly the Confederate flag, I think they are wrong because I think the Confederate flag is a racist symbol. But I think there are lot of poor people who fly that flag because the Republicans have been dividing us by race since 1968 with their Southern race strategy."
In the post-debate spin room, Dean seemed almost mournful about the tone of the night's events.
"I do think the tone of the attacks was unfortunate tonight, because those kinds of personal attacks are not going to achieve the goal that we seek, which is to make sure that George Bush is not reelected to another term," he told a crush of reporters.
He also singled out Edwards and Kerry for criticism. "I think that for Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards to claim that I'm a racist, which is essentially what they did, is going to hurt their campaigns more than I am. I think people know that I'm not a bigot."
The attacks on Dean were not entirely unexpected, given his status as the apparent front-runner. He is leading in the polls in New Hampshire, and is in a close race with former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt in Iowa. (Gephardt, in fact, was the only candidate not to show up at the event, choosing to stay in Iowa and campaign.) And such has been the strength of his Internet-driven fundraising that his campaign is considering an option that until now was the exclusive domain of the Bush campaign: forgoing federal matching funds in exchange for avoiding limits on spending during the primary campaign. According to a report Tuesday night by the Associated Press, the campaign is about to announce a "vote" by supporters on whether to bust the spending caps.
Judging by early reaction on the Dean Web site, the vote will overwhelmingly support spending the extra money. But Dean will no doubt come in for more criticism from his rivals if he ignores the spending limits.
For the rest of the field, by contrast, the "Rock the Vote" event was mostly an opportunity to dress casually (in some cases) and to talk about familiar subjects. John Kerry, in an open collar, talked about his experience in Vietnam and in the antiwar movement. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, wearing a black mock-turtleneck, criticized the Bush administration's conduct of military operations in Iraq. Edwards discussed his rural, working-class roots, Rep. Dennis Kucinich talked about his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman talked about his plans to create jobs, and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun talked about the need for women to have a higher profile in presidential politics.
Sharpton, dressed in his customary three-piece suit, once again had most of the night's punch lines. "I come from the [Martin Luther] King movement," he said. "We believe in dreams. Mr. Bush believes in hallucinations."
The event did have its lighter moments: The candidates were asked if they smoked marijuana, and Edwards, Dean and Kerry said they had, while Sharpton, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said they had not. Braun declined to answer. And as a group, the candidates revealed they favored PCs over Macs.
And Dean tried to keep his sense of humor. Reacting to criticism by Kerry over his position on gun control, Dean grinned and said, "I told a group of press people in Iowa, the reason I knew I was the front-runner is that I keep picking buckshot out of my rear end all the time."
It's certain Dean is in for more buckshot in the coming days. As the storm over his comments on Southern whites show, the plain-talking style that is so appealing to many frustrated Democrats can be troublesome to his candidacy, especially now that he's receiving much greater scrutiny than when he was an underdog candidate. Dean made virtually identical comments as far back as the DNC meeting last February, telling the crowd that "white folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools, too." Back then, he received standing ovations from the crowd and glowing reviews in the media.
He will also be blasted for his apparent desire to withdraw from the public finance system, which -- when he was a poor underdog early in 2003 -- he said he would abide by, contrasting his poverty with the campaign of President Bush. (The Bush campaign did not abide by the primary spending limits in 2000, and won't this year.)
But if his recent past is any indication, Dean will try to turn the assaults upon him to his advantage. Back on June 22, after a contentious appearance on "Meet the Press" in which he appeared to stumble under tough questioning, Dean supporters rallied to his defense by pouring in donations on his Web site. Tonight, after CNN host Anderson Cooper asked him about a past comment on gay partnerships, Dean accusingly fired back: "You sound like Tim Russert."
edit: wrong article 
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06-11-2003 18:53
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