DEAN AND SOUTHERNERS

Dodd Harris has an excellent post reacting to Howard Dean’s assertion that,

southerners have to quit basing their votes on “race, guns, God and gays.”

Indeed, those all seem worthwhile issues upon which to evaluate a presidential candidate.

When I first heard about the flap over Dean saying, “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” I didn’t think much of it. Indeed, there are quite a sizable number of such men (many of whom are quite sizable, but that’s another issue). Many of them vote. Wanting to have their vote seemed quite reasonable, given that accumulating votes is a primary objective of running for office.

Juxtaposing the two quotes, however, makes it apparent that Dean has a rather stereotypical view of the average Southerner. Yes, there are a lot of men in the South driving pickup trucks with a gun rack, a pinch of Copenhagen between their cheek and gums, who are quite culturally conservative. Of course, there are a fair number of people like that in Vermont, too. (I suspect they didn’t vote for Howard Dean, either.) But just as everyone in Vermont isn’t a fat socialist who makes overpriced ice cream, neither is every Southerner an unthinking redneck. Considering that it’s virtually impossible to get elected president without winning a Southern state or too, Dean might want to get down there a little more and talk to some people.

FILED UNDER: 2004 Election, , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. SwampWoman says:

    What, you think he didn’t insult us enough the first time through?

  2. Gabe Posey says:

    I wrote on this just this morning. I agree completely. Dean’s lumping of all southerners into a single category makes him a.) an idiot and b.) a very good candidate for the Democrats.

  3. Peter says:

    I’m a Texan, not quite the deep south but close enough. We’ve our fair share of rednecks, actually it’s not the neck that’s red, it’s the reflection off the backs of our ears, and the one thing a redneck won’t stand for is to be talked down to. That’s why Gore lost even his home state of Tennessee.
    Dean, in his condescension, has killed any chance of ever getting Bubba’s vote. To add to it, he’ll never in his life, be able to get out of a southern honkytonk with his teeth.

  4. JW says:

    What I don’t understand is how the national Democrats morphed into the party of rich-guys-in-suits, anyway. Danny GOldberg in “Culture Wars” makes the exact same point that Bernard Goldberg did in “Bias”–Democrats often really do seem to think that they’re better than ordinary people,that they know better how we should live our lives, and that their mission is life is to educate (if not outright coerce) the rest of America in their way of thinking.

    For all the religious right rhetoric that goes on in the REpublican Party, their strong libertarian impulse is what appeals to Southerners–the promise that they will get government out of our hair and let us live our lives in peace as long as we obey the law and pay our own way through life.

    The last point is the key–Southerners like for life to be fair. They believe that if you pay your taxes, cut the grass, raise your kids right, go to church, keep up with your bills, and obey the law, you should reap the rewards of your labor–a decent life without government interference.

    What we get instead are Democratic politicians saying that we personally aren’t doing enough for the poor, that we’re intolerant and narrow-minded, and that when our cars are stolen in the downtown area where we work, we should seek to understand the pathology of the inner city rather than expect the police to find the criminal, arrest him for grand larceny, put him in jail, and make sure he stays for his entire sentence.

    Southerners are tired of being preached to about how they are supposed to think, act, and talk, and they’re ready to stop being treated as second-class citizens by the political classes on the left and on the right. The politician who figures that out will win elections here–hands down.

  5. Bob from SC says:

    I drive an old pickup truck, because it does not depreciate, and I can merge with the Yuppies in the BMWs without fear when they see the fenders on which my 4 year old draws pictures.

    I do not have a confederate flag on the truck, as it may offend my black neighbors, as I have many, being in the south where we are integrated at the house to house level.

    I chew, I have and carry forearms, and yes, I am VERY politicaly conservative.

    Point is, I am very much a NASCAR dad, and Howard Dean would get my vote whenever I ice skate on the surface of hell.

  6. jakimbro says:

    A Southerners retort to Dean
    Dear Mr. Dean.
    I have no intention of voting for you. Your little remark about the Confderate flag pissed me off too much. And now you have the audacity to “find” Jesus.
    You’re just another yankee slicker saying whatever you think us dumb southerners want to hear to get your vote. We see right through you.
    So keep your elite yankee ass up north where it belongs.
    You will NEVER win the south.

  7. jakimbro says:

    A Southerners retort to Dean
    Dear Mr. Dean.
    I have no intention of voting for you. Your little remark about the Confderate flag pissed me off too much. And now you have the audacity to “find” Jesus.
    You’re just another yankee slicker saying whatever you think us dumb southerners want to hear to get your vote. We see right through you.
    So keep your elite yankee ass up north where it belongs.
    You will NEVER win the south.