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.
