DEAN AND REDNECKS
Well, Howard Dean really screwed up. He said: "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks". That prompted John Kerry to say that he'd rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA. I don't know that Dean's statement was calculated to appeal to NRA voters, but at least the NRA is an organization who's mission is not based on skin colorn and an fundamental misunderstaning of the 5th and 14th Amendments.

Dean was excoriated by the other candidates, who decided that Dean must also want the votes of dumb, bigoted, racist rednecks with guns. Such is the understanding the Democratic party has of southern culture. Not all confederate flag waivers are racist (although many are). What Dean was saying was that he wants the votes of the conservative southern Democrats who elect Democrat governors in states like Mississippi and North Carolina while voting overwhelmingly for every Republican presidential candidate since 1980. Dean is smart to notice that national Democrats do poorly in the south, and he merely articulated the primary strategy of John Edwards and Wesley Clark.

Dean's mistake was stereotyping and insulting southern Democrats and southerners in general (our people are much more diverse than Vermont's) and his failure to have any policy proposals that appeal to them. They want lower taxes and they want to kick some terrrorist ass. If the Democrats would appeal to southern voters by articulating policies they prefer, then maybe they could win the South. Until that time, the South will be off limits to them. They would do well to read Zell Miller.

UPDATE: Another analysis of Dean's ignorance about the south.