QuackQuack's Journal: The trouble with Democrats

The whole Howard Dean/Confederate Flag flap illustrates a lot of what is wrong with the Democratic party, and why their power keeps slipping away.

First of all, it is calling up negative stereotypes about southerners. Imagine if some Republican had said "We need to bring more African Americans into our party, I want to be the candidate for the blacks eating their watermelon and fried chicken and singing in gospel chiors.". I'm sure you can imagine the outrage. Dean's statement is probably just as offensive to white southerners as the statement above would be for blacks. It illustrates the elitist, I'm better than you are attitude of northeasterners that many southerners resent. To put it mildly, it's not going to make him the candidate for the people he wants to bring into the party. Neither is Al Sharpton's rebuttal, which essentially said, "I don't want those types of people in my party". In fact, the only candidate who seems to even comprehend the problem is southerner John Edwards. The rest of the candidates seem to see Deans comment as offensive to only Blacks. It's Political Correctness at it's worst. (it's OK to offend some groups but not others)

Dean is right that Democrats need to make progress in the south, which used to be solidly Democrat, but has been steadily slipping away from them, and is now almost solidly Republican. But Dean is unwittingly demonstrating that he's part of the problem.

The other part that Democrats don't get is the Confederate flag. To them it is nothing but a racist symbol as it only signifies slavery. Any historian will tell you that the Civil War was not just about slavery, but other issues as well. The confederate flag is part of the heritage and identity of the south to many southerners. Flying it doesn't automatically make you racist anymore than it means that you want to seceed from the Union. Even Liberal Tom Petty flew it for many years at his concerts. Slavery used be legal in the US, and the US did mean things to the native people, but do we see the US flag as a racist symbol? (Well some liberals have argued that, but don't expect to hear that from a Democrat who wants to be elected). Condemn racist acts, but don't expect to win friends by trying to deprive someone of their identity.

The Democrats like to think of themselves as the party of tolerance. In practice, the are tolerant of some, but not others. This puts many people off. Why they cannot see this, I don't know. I guess they are too busy blaming their failings on some "Vast Right-wing Conspiracy" that cheats them out of their rightful votes. In truth, Democrats NEED the south if they want to win back the White House. There hasn't been a Democrat elected President since JFK that wasn't from the South. But it's clear they have no idea how to win there, and their only hope right now is that Dubya seriously implodes.