I'm sure I'm late to this debate, but I was stuck in an airport in Memphis when the infamous Dean/Sharpton screamfest occured. Y'know, I thought the Confie flag thing was just a minor thing that would blow over, but it looks like this is developing into one of those defining primary battle issues. Fine-- it gives us a chance to see how our candidates act in both the aggressive and defense aspects of a "scandal".
And so far I'm not impressed.
Dean's use of the Confederate flag as a symbol was stupid. As a Dean supporter, I've said so for a while-- you could certainly pick a less controversial issue to symbolize low-income white people. But let's be clear: Dean's using it to refer to an economic segment of the white population, not as a racist symbol. In the course of attacking him, every single one of his opponents ceded that point. Most though, went on to attack him for "racism" anyway. I mean really, if you're going to attack someone for being a racist then don't start out your tirade with "I don't think he's a racist, but...".
But ultimately, the other candidates would have needed to offer something more concete than simple criticism to really hurt Dean on the issue. They would have had to say something like, "the way to attract Southern, poor, white people back to the party isn't by appealing to race, it's by appealing to......". And, to my surprise and dismay, NOBODY did that. In particular, this debate really damaged my esteem for John Edwards.
I expect Sharpton to be a shallow polemicist. It's his MO and it's devastating when he's directing it against the Republicans. But John Edwards is supposed to have some substance to him. More importantly, attracting poor whites back to the party by appealing to class rather than race is supposed to be his keynote issue-- you'd think Edwards could have used an opening like that to display his years of advocacy for poor whites and his great economic ideas. When he walked around the podium and said "I want to answer that young man's question" I thought we'd see Edwards clinching the debate right there. What we got instead was less inspiring. He says "I'm from the South" like 8 times and uses his own Reconstruction-era slur to basically call Dean a carpetbagger. Big deal.
The worst part about this is seeing the fruits of a concerted Democratic establishment campaign to attack a candidate that's vulnerable on a potentially volatile issue-- let's face it, they failed. Al Sharpton and John Edwards-- two of the fields best orators if not best candidates-- tag team Howard Dean. Lieberman and Kerry get their licks in CNN's after-show debate. That's a pretty major push to tag Dean with this issue. And yet of all them, DEAN comes out looking best of all. Every clip of the debate that night and since has him giving a speech about MLK and racial unity even as Sharpton makes a stupid play on words about Stonewall and Jesse. If you're not a committed activist, which view is going to appeal to you? Ultimately, at the end of all of it you have Dean, the "elistist McGovernik peacenik" candidate, coming off as the Democrat who cares most about poor white guys-- even as Edwards and Gephardt are depending on having exactly that image. I mean sure, as a Dean supporter it makes me kind of happy to see him do so well, but at the same time it leaves me just a little worried about how well our party is equipped for brewing scandal. If these guys had used political strategy this ineffective during Iran-Contra, they would have renamed the WHITE HOUSE after Reagan by now.