They Don't Really Need Those Votes, Anyway
Well, it looks like Dean has been dragged back into the fold. He almost apologized for his Confederate flag comment, saying

Many people in the African-American community have supported what I said in the past few days because they understand what this is about. But some have not, and to those I deeply regret the pain that I may have caused.

In other southern news, while in Florida this week, Dean unloaded this turd:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."

He forgot to tell people with jobs to quit basing their votes on "income, Social Security, Medicare, and capital gains taxes". It would also help the Dems if Americans who don't like being murdered stopped basing their votes on "Pentagon, World Trade Center, Bali, USS Cole, Kenyan/Tanzanian embassies, World Trade Center the first time..."

You can't bitch about how stupid the electorate is and then hope to win their vote, especially if you are a New York Yalie talking to Southerners.

The fact is, the South is socially conservative - you can either appeal to that (as Dean started to try to do), or preserve your ideological purity and lose like Al Gore. It is a shame for you poor mislead Democrats out there that your party has decided it can do without half the country. As one Florida columnist summed it up:

Gephardt, Dean, Lieberman and Kerry probably needn't waste too much time trying to court the Southern pickup crowd. Most I've seen - with American or Confederate flags on them - also have another sticker on their bumpers. It's red, white and blue and says: Bush.

Marc