Wake Up Dean

Wake Up, Dean!

Thomas McCullock

I keep getting emails from Dean'ers about how his comments on the Confederate Flag were taken out of context. Well of course they were! That's not the point. Unlike Clark, who doesn't know a damned thing about campaigning, Dean has been through all this before, and should have known better where not to step. As one Dean'er pointed out: He could have made the same point by saying ''guys with gunracks in their pickups'', and avoided the whole stupid controversy. Instead, he just gave ammo to the enemy. Anyone who has ever brought up the Confederate Flag in public conversation knows you'd better be willing to spend the rest of the night on the topic. He's apparently just now figuring this out.

Dean keeps making matters worse by refusing to just admit "ok, it was a poor choice or words". Instead he keeps defending it, and has backed himself into a corner that he is now going to have to fight his way out of. On Rock the Vote last night it was obvious that the other candidates are desperate and are NOT going to let him out of this easy. They've spotted a weakness, and they are going to exploit it as much as they can; it's their only hope of getting the nomination. Please don't tell me how "it shouldn't be that way", that is the way it is. This is the political system Dean has deal with; and if he can't hold up against them, how is he going to stand up against Karl Rove's MegaSlime2004 political war machine? Perhaps this is evolution: ''survival of the fittest''.

It should be obvious that the way to reach out to poor southern families is the same as the way to reach out to poor families anywhere else - by focusing on the ECONOMY; not by using a controversial symbol that even I know enough to avoid mentioning in public unless I want the topic to be stuck on racism.

As for his desire to renege on his commitment to campaign spending limits, this is an even worse move.

I totally disagree that Dean doesn't have a chance if he sticks to federal financing. If he stays the course, he will still have one of the largest war chests of any Democrat in history. Not to mention an opponent who has screwed up the country worse than any other in history. With things going the way they are, Yours Truly might be able to beat Bush at the polls next year. Just because Bush has even more $$ doesn't mean Dean has to stoop to the Greedy Old Pricks' level and start accepting dirty money. Instead, he should MAKE AN ISSUE OF WHERE BUSH'S CAMPAIGN MONEY COMES FROM. So that every Bush ad only inflames the have-nots even more. He should use his brain and use Bush's advertising $s against him.

And let's face it, even if he does flip-flop on this, he STILL isn't going to raise as much as BushCo. Big Corp. knows which side of the bread is buttered. They want the status quo, they aren't going to be sending that kind of megabucks to Dean.

I think Dean is shooting himself in the foot on this one, when he should be taking the high road and looking like a hero.

I myself prefer Kucinich, but I recognize the likelihood of his getting the nomination is low. Dean is my ''second best'' choice. I don't want him screwing this thing up so bad that Lieberman ends up being our ''choice'' in Nov '04.

Thomas McCulloch tm@thomasmc.com is an activist with the Springs Action Alliance in Colorado Springs http://csaction.org, and editor of ThomasMc.com This article is copyright Thomas McCullock and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.