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[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Local press in the Boston area focused on Dean's response to Sharpton, which was focused on the flag as a racist symbol, and in which Dean came perilously close to calling them races, though you are right, I don't think he crossed the line and I don't think he meant to. Then he got slammed by Edwards, who almost certainly was mischaracterizing him but very effectively so, and the whole thing made Dean look very bad.

local press in Boston probably isn't where you should look to see the reaction. I mean Mass. probably will stay blue.
and if the Senior Senator from Georgia (D- Miller) knows anything, the whole fight is all for naught- I don't usually quote much but this is all good
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/o...02miller.html#

Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, FDR, looked south and said, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." Today our national Democratic leaders look south and say, "I see one-third of a nation and it can go to hell."

Too harsh? I don't think so. Consider these facts. In 1960, the state of Georgia gave the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy, a higher percentage of its vote than JFK's home state of Massachusetts. Only the percentage in Rhode Island was greater. ............

Except for 1976, when regional pride was a huge factor and native son Jimmy Carter lost only Virginia among the 11 states of the old Confederacy, the scoreboard read like this: In 1968, Hubert Humphrey carried Texas because of Lyndon Johnson, but no other state. Jimmy Carter in 1980 carried only Georgia; the others left the incumbent. In 1992, another native son of the South, Bill Clinton, carried four: Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee. In 1996, Clinton carried Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Florida. So, four times -- 1972, 1984, 1988, and 2000 -- the Democratic candidate couldn't carry a single Southern state. Not one! Zero! Zilch! And two times, 1968 and 1980, only one Southern state favored the Democratic candidate.

Either the party is not a national party or the candidates were not national candidates. Take your pick. ..........

Little has changed, except that Nancy Pelosi has taken the place of Gephardt, which makes it even worse. In 2004, none of the leadership can come. When it comes to romancing the South, they bring their flowery bouquets wrapped in old, dried-up carpetbag containers.

. . . The biggest problem with the party leadership is that they know nothing about the modern South. They still see it as a land of magnolias and mint juleps, with the pointy-headed KKK lurking in the background, waiting to burn a cross or lynch blacks and Jews.
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Al Gore became only the third Democrat since the Civil War to lose every state in the Old Confederacy, plus two border states as well. George McGovern and Walter Mondale were the others. But they had an excuse: they were crushed in national landslides. They didn't just lose the South. They lost from sea to shining sea.

Gore's loss was different. Had he won any state in the Old Confederacy or one more border state, he would be president today. But it didn't happen. Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas and the Democratic bastion of West Virginia. Even Michael Dukakis -- hardly a son of the South -- didn't manage to lose there.

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Chances are it's going to happen again. Given the demographic changes that determine the makeup of the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, it will be worse. In 2004, if we have the exact same popular-vote split between the Democratic and Republican candidates, and if these candidates win the same states, the Electoral College margin for the Republican will get bigger. How much bigger? The Republican candidate would have a majority in the Electoral College not by four electors, as George W. Bush did in 2000, but by 18.

. . . It will be difficult for the Democratic Party to nominate a candidate capable of winning nationwide until it abandons the suicidal compulsion of allowing Iowa and New Hampshire to be the tail that always wags the Democratic donkey. Don't misunderstand me. These are good states with good people living in them and good people representing them in public office.

But not by any stretch of one's imagination can the Iowa Democratic caucus be interpreted as representative of the nation. More to the truth, it is simply allowing labor unions to make this most important first decision. And those first decisions more often than not become the ultimate decision.

Consider this: there are 32,000 unionized teachers and 28,000 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Iowa -- and are they activists! In 2000, with a hot contest between Al Gore and Bill Bradley, the Iowa caucuses drew 61,000 participants. Add up the above numbers and guess who were the ones who turned out.

By the way, there are four counties in Georgia alone that vote more than twice that number. New Hampshire is a great state, but a microcosm of America it is not. Isn't it strange that based on the outcome in these two states, a Democratic candidate will be chosen? No, it's more than strange; it's suicide.

Did Dean know the part about not being seen as "looking down" on them?
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