...Sierra Times. The paper is FAR-RIGHT, but it shows that Dean may well have appeal to "guys with Confederate Flags on their Pickups" and old-style conservatives. For the record, I'm doing this as a nonaligned Dem (though I actually support Kerry) -- I see good things in all the candidates and am firmly behind the nominee, which Dean seems likely to be at the moment.
Here's the article:
http://sierratimes.com/03/12/05/ar_carlworden.htm"Unless Howard Dean screws up in some spectacular way, or unless Dean dies in another suspicious airplane accident, Howard Dean will be the next president of the United States. Mark my words.
Dean is the perfect candidate for election in 2004. George W. Bush has divided the Republican Party into two distinct groups. They comprise the phony and fascist Neo-Conservatives who mistakenly embraced the perpetually wrong philosophy that the ends justify the means, ala Clinton. To them, if Clinton could get away with it, why shouldn’t they? Their error has manifested itself via a disastrous war on Iraq that was never constitutionally declared by Congress, and the blatantly and irrefutably unconstitutional Patriot Act.
Both the moderate Democrats and the true American Christian conservatives have found themselves in surprising and stunning agreement on these issues...
A president who personally declares a United States citizen an enemy combatant, ineligible for legal counsel or to face his accusers and their evidence against him, even though he was arrested on U.S. soil and never carried a weapon against U.S. forces or their allies, is a domestic enemy of the people of the United States. True Christian conservatives understood that the moment he issued the order.
True Americans with solid constitutional convictions were outraged by that, and they immediately knew they had a problem in the White House. I don’t know what Howard Dean’s religious convictions, if any, hold to. But it doesn’t matter in this case. Here we have a pro-gun candidate who is against this disastrous war in Iraq, and he is a candidate intent on principle to uphold he personal convictions. I like him, and for the first time in my life, I will vote for a Democrat, Howard Dean, to be my next president next November.
If he’s still alive.
-- Carl F. Worden"
The article also says that he, a "true American conservative" like those who he says "once controlled the Republican Party" are outraged at Bush's actions (actually, I kind of doubt he speaks for ALL of them, but there's certainly a subgroup that is outraged) and that he and many of them have vowed NEVER TO VOTE FOR BUSH AGAIN.
It is a legitimate question whether we want supporters like this man -- someone who is quite conservative, and who represents a frightenlingly right-wing rag (page thru the site and they view the assault weapons ban as fascist). But I say, we can use whatever voters we can get to get Bush outta the WH.