Dean Wins If He Fights Nixon?

[burning bush]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-oe-kurlansky29dec29,1,4444064.story?coll=la-home-politics

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For Howard Dean to Win, He'll Have to Beat Nixon


In discussing the campaign ahead, Howard Dean has said on several occasions...that for him to win in 2004 he has to defeat a system established in 1968 by Richard M. Nixon. Never one to mince words, Dean has described that system as one of "coded racism." And its key code phrase was "states' rights," an old Southern favorite going back to the right to own slaves

<snip>

Nixon saw his opportunity in the decline of the great civil rights movement and the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. He judged that the South, a solid Democratic bloc that had never forgiven Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans for the Emancipation Proclamation, was furious about 10 years of civil rights progress and was ready to turn on the Democrats, who had received faithful Southern support since before the Civil War. In the end, Nixon defeated the Democrats not because of their worst disaster, Vietnam, but because of their greatest accomplishment, civil rights.

<snip>

All Republican presidential candidates since 1968, including George W. Bush, have used the accepted code phrase for anti-civil rights, "states' rights." That is why there was no contradiction in Bush endorsing states' rights and then, when his election was in doubt, turning to the federal court run by a member of the original team, Chief Justice Rehnquist.

No Democrat since John Kennedy has won a majority of white Southern votes. Dean knows that if he is to run successfully for president he will have to run against Nixon. He knows that if the fight is out in the open, both Nixon and his racist approach are beatable.


************ END STORY **********************

Let others crow and caw at Dean for his "offense" to southern whites, or about his amatuer error when he mentioned the Confederate flag. Often as not, it is those same dissenters who claim that Dean is hopeless because same said southern whites will only vote for a Dem if he is southern and white! Consider that juicy bit of open mindedness, and tell me who has the stereotypical view of the south, will ya?

We do NOT need a Southerner on the ticket, what we need is a candidate who is not afraid to take the debate back from the Republicans, take the language back from the Republicans, and take hearts and minds of the racially divided, economically disabled southern voters back from the Republicans.

To some extent, the Dem party as a whole seems to understand this principle, but for some unfathomable reason regularly chooses to forget or ignore what they know.

Dean, through what may have been an inadvertent slip, or a subtley deliberate message, has shown that he gets it, and has the guts to go after the south on his own terms - on Democratic terms.

Not on the Republican's terms. Not on Nixon's terms.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Thanks I have the feeling that Joe Trippi and Howard

Dean are onto something and we have new alliances being forged

RIGHT NOW

[burning bush]

8. New Alliances

You're right about that, and it takes a little thinking outside of the box to create those alliances.

This is why Dean can, and will win against Bush, and why our other candidates may not.

[mouse7]

2. I WAS a southern white

Anyone to the left of Nixon flees at the first opportunity. I got mine, and ran.

Proud adopted Left-Coast hippie now :)

[burning bush]

3. Kick

for the AM crowd

[Byronic]

4. Well,

we all know the current Democratic presidential candidate that made Tricky Dick worry enough to add another name on his 'enemies' list.
:-)

[burning bush]

5. Making Nixon's enemy list

should be like breathing.

But Dean is the only candidate out there putting the Nixon Doctrine at the center of the bullseye.

[Byronic]

6. Are you trying to suggest

that President Nixon was paranoid beyond belief and would add people's names to his 'enemy list' for reasons like "he looked at me funny" and "the little people told me to do so"?

Hmm...you might be right there.

Still a badge of honor for Kerry though.

[burning bush]

9. "The little people told me"..LOL!

Yeah, Sick Dick was quite the trick.

But, again, I don't see any other Dem targeting Nixon's racist doctrine - the political segregation of the south.

Dean is taking the party in the right direction, which is one of the reasons he gets my support, and he is dead on correct in his assesment of how to address the south.

Which is just one of the reasons that Dean can win against Bush, where other candidates may fail.

We do NOT need a southerner, we just need a decent American to bring the south back home and mend the rift of abuse devised by the Republican party.

With this strategy, Dean will win.

[Rose Siding]

7. Good on the LA Times

How refreshing to see a little political analysis using historical events and trends. sigh

[burning bush]

10. This deserves to be discussed

kick...