[Peace-discuss] beyond symbolic issues

[patton paul]

Dean's New Southern Strategy
Blacks and Whites Together--Focused on Education and Healthcare

by US Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Historically, the Confederate flag is a symbol of the Democratic Party.
Today, however, Republicans can fly and wave it, but Democrats can't talk
about it--and current Democrats don't know how to handle it.

As a result, the symbol Howard Dean used got in the way of his substance,
but his substance was on point--and the point was that Southern whites and
blacks together must focus on their common economic needs: jobs, good
schools, affordable healthcare.

Howard Dean has a new Democratic Southern strategy.

Democrats know the divide in the South is race. Republicans have exploited
it. Democrats have evaded it.

Every Democrat has known since the civil rights movement that the party
was becoming less competitive in the South because of race. Republicans
have successfully exploited race (in proportion to black voting strength)
since Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" of 1968, by, among other things,
using racial code words: Nixon's "law and order," Reagan's "states'
rights" and "welfare queen," and the first George Bush's "Willie Horton."

When white moderates started catching on to their racial tactics,
Republicans switched from racial to mainly social issues, as a diversion
to misdirect voters away from the economic plight of many Southerners,
white and black.

For example, Republicans campaign to "keep prayer in public schools," "to
display the Ten Commandments in public buildings," to maintain the words
"under God" in the pledge of allegiance, and around the death penalty,
welfare mothers, abortion, homosexuality and pornography--all of which
play well in the socially conservative Bible belt of the South. As a
result, Republicans market cultural campaigns around moral values.

It's one thing for the South to be conservative socially in the Bible
belt, but quite another to be economically conservative. But Republicans
deliberately blur the distinction between social and economic
conservatism.

Economically, when compared to other US regions, the South has
disproportionately high unemployment, unfair taxes, poverty, illiteracy,
poor schools and inadequate healthcare and housing--for both white and
black. Why would anyone want to conserve such economic misery?

So what have Republicans offered these working-class white Southerners?
Tax cuts for the rich, less government, a strong military message, plus
symbolic cultural, social and moral issues.

Disappointingly, Democrats over several decades, rather than campaigning
around common economic needs of Southern whites and blacks, have mostly
imitated Republicans on social and cultural issues and failed to challenge
around economic issues. White Democrats, South and North, want and need
the black vote to win, but then avoid meeting black economic and political
expectations that accompany their vote.

In lieu of offering an economic agenda to Southern voters, Democrats
instead have used the idea of a "regionally balanced ticket" as the way of
dealing with this problem.

John Kennedy put Lyndon Johnson on the ticket in 1960. LBJ went with
Hubert Humphrey in 1964. Jimmy Carter's running mate in 1976 was Walter
Mondale. In 1988 Michael Dukakis ran with Lloyd Bentsen. And as the
Southern white Democratic vote continued to decline, Bill Clinton used a
two-pronged strategy in 1992-96, appealing to social conservatism and
putting a second Southerner on the ticket. They campaigned in support of
the death penalty, ending welfare as we know it and putting an end to the
era of big government. Most recently, in 2000, conservative Northern
Democrat Joseph Lieberman ran alongside Southerner Al Gore.

Rather than repeating this stereotypical and condescending approach of
appealing to whites in the South with a "balanced ticket" and "social
conservatism," Howard Dean dares a new approach--to join whites and blacks
around a common economic agenda of good schools and healthcare.

If Howard Dean wins the nomination around an economic agenda, and can
effectively combat the certain Republican tactic of diversion--using
social issues openly, and race more subtly, to sublimate economic
concerns--then Democrats may once again be able to win in the South and
pursue a progressive economic agenda for the benefit of all Americans.

That's Howard Dean's approach and his challenge. I support him because I
think it's the right strategy politically, economically and morally.