(written 11/5/03) Just after writing my previous post about how Howard Dean is a hopeless case in the South, I read an article on Yahoo today, where he apologized for making an insensitive mark about the South. Apparently, “Dean got in trouble while defending his moderate views on gun ownership, saying Democrats need to address such cultural issue if they want to appeal to Southern white voters who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flags in the windows.” The implication that all Southerners are white trash who worship the Confederate flag apparently offended many blacks and all of the other Democratic candidates.

The really crazy thing is that Dean was on the right track. They do need to find a way to appeal to those folks. Even though one South Carolina democrat disgustedly said, “My God. Couldn’t he have simply said we need to appeal to the ‘Bubba vote’ or ‘good ol’ boy vote?'”, that’s exactly what the Democrats need to do to have a chance. But now that Dean handled it poorly, nobody else is going to try to touch it, which means that the South will be lost as expected, and the Democrats will lose. It’s almost like the Democrats are trying to find ways to make their position worse. Crazy stuff. I’m more and more resigned to Bush having another four years in office to destroy the American economy and any credibility we have overseas, because the Democrats don’t have anybody who can politick their way out of a paper bag.