A lot of people, including myself, agree with Dean's basic point while thinking that the mention of appealing to people who display Confederate flags was not as well-worded as it could be. I'm glad that Dean added the part about putting down the flags when asked to explain himself further because he had not included that statement the previous times he made the comment.

what so many in the blog world missed was the full quote, which is quite thoughtful, i thought and certainly not anything that the DNC has been saying for years and not acting on it.

"I intend to talk about race in this election in the south because the Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us. And I'm going to bring us together, because you know what? White folks in the south who drive pickups trucks with confederate flags decals in the back ought to be voting with us and not them, because their kids don't have health insurance either and their kids need better schools too." HOWARD DEAN

The other nominees' criticism of Dean is just so much pandering and posturing. He said nothing that was racist. He said nothing that was patronizing. Rather, once again, he proved himself willing to take risks, again differentiating himself from all the pretenders.

Of course Dean's heart is in the right place, but he wasted political capital by ham-handedly addressing this issue in an off-message manner; he's done this too many times on too many issues for my taste. He's badly exposed enough on raising middle class taxes.

And I never for a moment doubt Dean's intentions or strategy; I just see this as insensitive and bumbling.

I have to say, I'm really divided on this one.

On the one hand, the larger point Dean (and Max and you) was trying to make is absolutely correct. Mainstream Democrats (and most leftists for that matter) do very little to reach out to working-class whites, even though for all the reasons you point to they should be on our side.

On the other hand, the Confederate flag really is a symbol of racisim -- it's wrong to deny this and foolish not to know it. Sharpton's line about the swastika is over the top and exaggerated, but at root, right.

But on the third hand, the camapign work I've been doing while this thing has been unfolding has meant that I've had the opportunity to talk to lots of black political and union activists about it. And as far as I can tell, their sympathies are 100% with Dean. So maybe we white liberals are overreacting on this one.

Honestly, I don't know.

It's clear to me that the only real problem with the statement was that it offended some white southerners with slightly awkward phrasing-- a bit of labelling them as alien folks rather than expressing solidarity with them while chiding them for the wrong view on the confederate flag.

But then it's hard to challenge people on their beliefs while asking for their votes-- it's a complicated maneuver but the right one.

The problem is that Dean's point is too "deep" for the vast majority of the electorate. He needs to find a concrete example to have this understandable. In reality, its not a race issue at all.

Apparently it appears that the kind of Clintonian "triangulation" has reared its ugly head. The execuses for Dean's ill-advised remarks in this thread demonstrate how "liberals" constantly compromises principles and make execuses for their "conservative" "saviors".

Dean's confederate flag remarks insults a broad spectrum of constituents. It stereotypes all southern white males, alienates southern African American and buys into the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) thinking. All of which won't help the Democrats in 2004.

Another case in point is that a liberal message can win in the south. Jesse Jackson demonstrated this with his Super Tuesday showing in 1988. The point is that if you send a strong and umambiguious message people will turn out. It makes more sence to expand the electorate rather than compete within the same narrow assumptions.

WB