FAKE OUTRAGE WATCH: As anyone following the Democratic presidential primaries (and that's not most people) now knows, Howard Dean got himself into a bit of trouble with something he said the other day- and no, I'm not talking about the "metrosexual" crack.
Dean, in an interview over the weekend with an Iowa newspaper, stated that "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." The line was a variation on one Dean has often used throughout the campaign, only substituting "Confederate flags" for "gun racks" as the pickup-truck accoutrement of choice for his mythical country bumpkins.
It's a textbook case of a political gaffe- telling the truth by accident. Because as much as Dean's core audience of Northeastern elites might hate it, no, Dean can't win a general election without the support of at least a few of the Confederate flag and gun rack people. After all Al Gore, who had a reputation of being anti-gun despite soft-pedaling the issue during the 2000 campaign, didn't win a single Southern state, even though he is himself a Southerner.
The rest of the candidates, of course, went into "how dare you!" mode, led by John Kerry, who called the comment "unconscionable." Bullshit. Kerry isn't "outraged" that Dean said that; in fact, he couldn't be more thrilled. It gives him a club with which to beat Dean for the rest of the campaign, even though I doubt this will be more than two- or -three-day story.
Then again, Kerry gave up a little bit of credibility in his comments, as his further slam of Dean on the gun issue came while the senator was on a pheasant-hunting expedition with reporters.
UPDATE: Democratic Senator from Georgia (and Bush supporter) Zell Miller on Dean's comment: "[Dean] knows about as much about the South as a hog knows about Sunday."
Posted by Stephen Silver at November 3, 2003 09:28 PM