What Would Dean Do?
By Gary Aldrich (01/08/04)
As Howard Dean holds his nose and heads to campaign in the Southern states, Southern voters should ask themselves, “What would Dean do?” just in case he’s elected president in 2004. The answer is obvious – Dean will revert back to the bad old days of Lyndon Baines Johnson and William Jefferson Clinton.
Right now, voters North and South want a strong national defense and a president who’s willing to show terrorists the hard way that a heavy price will be paid for attacking our country and killing our fellow citizens. A Dean presidency will do just the opposite and spell disaster for the US.
While campaigning in the South, Dean will have to mingle with the backward Christians every elitist Yankee believes inhabit this hot, mosquito-ridden swampland. He must do this successfully if he hopes to win any Southern state in the coming election. Al Gore could not even carry his own state of Tennessee, so it’s unlikely Gore will be much help to Dean. In fact, Gore’s recent endorsement of Dean may actually hurt him in the South.
Traditional Southern Democrats, like Georgia Senator Zell Miller, have already let the Democratic Party know where they stand – they don’t like where the party is going, and they want changes now. The last candidate Senator Miller would entertain in Georgia is Howard Dean, so Georgia will not be rolling out the red carpet for Dean – he’s too Hard-Left to suit the popular Senator.
Florida, of course, is Jeb Bush Country, and if the state really wanted to support an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War candidate, they already had Bob Graham, senior Senator and former governor of Florida. Senator Graham was well-respected in the state, but as soon as he began attacking George Bush, his fortunes fell off so sharply that he had little choice but to abandon national politics altogether. He dropped out of the race, and will not run for re-election in the US Senate.
The little bit I know about conservative North Carolina leads me to believe that Dean will not get much traction there, nor will he make much sense to those living in South Carolina. And forget about Texas for good and obvious reasons. Folks who live in the great State of Texas are too savvy to fall for a “recently holy” Dean.
Mississippi and Louisiana are states that can lean Democrat as long as the candidate is pro-flag, pro-religion, pro-Traditional American Values and pro-country during a time of war. Want to bet Dean will be as welcome as cold, lumpy, stale grits in those God-fearing, hardworking states?
Dean knows there isn’t much he can do or say to convince Southerners he has their best interests in mind, or that he even understands the first thing about the South. His Northeastern lingo will be indigestible to the knowing, hard-scrabble populations of the South. There is no evidence that blacks think very much of Dean, either. Poll after poll suggests that while minority voters prefer a Democrat in the White House – they aren’t supporting Dean. He’s no Bill Clinton, and in fact, he recently criticized the “first black president”.
But Dean certainly is trying – his latest effort includes invoking the name of Jesus. Dean watchers and handlers now tell us that Dean is a deeply committed Christian – coincidently only as he moves South – although there’s no evidence he attends church, and he has previously written and said little of his devotion to God.
Actually, there is more evidence that Dean worships government and considers government more worthy of his loyalty. For example, it’s reported that when Howard Dean’s Episcopalian church objected to the local government taking private land to install a bike-path against homeowner’s wishes, Dean’s reaction was to very publicly drop out of his church – to which he’s never gone back.
Let’s see. A bike path ordered by some government agency vs. private property rights found in the Constitution, defended by your own church. Is this the “stuff” upon which you destroy a relationship with a major Christian religion? Is this where you would decide to make your stand?
Dean’s “courageous” position to protect bureaucrats’ plans is evidence of the lack of gravitas this miniature man as politician has achieved.
Southerners may appear slow or even ignorant to elitist Northeastern Yankees, but those who live in the South are not dumb. They’ll be polite, and may even smile at Dean to make him stop talking, but what they do in the voting booth is what counts. Dean will not win votes in the South by trying to imitate a Baptist preacher, but it is evidence of how far he’s willing to go.
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