Pitching Bubba

 

An AP story over the weekend tells you something about the poor quality of the Democratic competition. It reported that Howard Dean is getting shots from his rivals for remarks he made suggesting the party needed to attract the people sporting Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. Dean said it in an interview in the Des Moines Register, noting that they can’t beat George Bush without a broad cross-section of Donkeys. That means with southern males.

Well, ya woulda thought he besmirched the good name of Martin Luther King Jr., the way Dick Gephardt, who’s from Missouri, for crying out loud, tore into the doctor from Vermont. The former Democratic leader of the House accused Dean of attracting votes from those "who disagree with us on bedrock Democratic values like civil rights." That’s a mighty broad brush with which to tar. Not everyone who sports the stars-‘n-bars is racist, as offensive as others may find the symbol.

John Kerry, who served in Vietnam and should know better than pandering to anyone, charged Dean with pandering to the National Rifle Association, saying he, Kerry, "would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA." That’s not really the choice here, Senator, do you think?

John Edwards, who’s from North Carolina, said rather mindlessly, "To assume that southerners who drive trucks would embrace this symbol is offensive." That doesn’t even make sense.

Puffed General Clark, "The Confederate flag flies in the face of our most deeply held American values — diversity, equality and inclusion." Really? How about integrity and quality and vision and dignity and compassion and intellect and humor?

Not to be left out, Joe Lieberman called the Confederate flag, "one of the most divisive, hurtful symbols in American history."

Well all that’s true, but gem’mun you be missin’ duh boat. First of all, if you want to beat Bush you have to get Bubba to vote Democratic. Bubba is a southern white male who has roots to the Confederacy. He doesn’t like being talked down to. He won’t be taken for granted. He’s gotta be made to understand that the Republican economic agenda is antithetical to the interests of the American worker, while the Democrats ostensibly are not.

Second, Bubba is willing to work for his hen-scratchings, but he doesn’t feel good about working hard when so many around his are getting public assistance. It also seems to many Bubbas that the Dems tend to favor poor blacks over poor whites, and that doesn’t sit well.

Listen up, Democrats. It’s not about conning the young rednecks; it’s about giving them the right reasons to vote for you. As Dean put it in a speech last winter, you pitch ‘em "because their kids don't have health insurance, either, and their kids need better schools, too." Unfortunately the Dem pols are too busy ruffling their feathers to get to the point.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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