Has the John Edwards campaign reacted to Saunders two pieces on Swampland yet?

Is Saunders really a consultant for Edwards? Or is he a plant intent on destroying support for Edwards?

I notice that many of the comments on the blog mentioned that there would be no more money and support going to Edwards as long as this guy keeps insulting the people who faithfully pull the lever for a Democratic President every election cycle.

I sent an e-mail to Edwards linking to both Saunders’ columns in Swampland, informing him that I’ll stop giving money to his campaign as long as the Edwards campaign does not apologize for Saunders’ totally uncalled-for vitriol.

I guess we’re all just going to keep forming circular firing squads while the Republicans keep on laughing.

Rayne, Thanks for the reply.

I do not doubt Dean’s good intentions.

But, candidates have to be very careful and savvy about things they say that are “quoteable” on the internet, and may lead to huge misperceptions.

Most people, even the internet savvy, will not know about the full speech that Dean gave, and will not have heard him on conference calls.

Your comments about alienating this segment I can agree with. But, whatever the nuances of what Dean said, framing the reality in this way was not politically astute.

If a candidate doesn’t get it that the words they use are just as likely, or more likely, to insult those who don’t like the stereotyping of Southerners, and that those words are not actually reaching/ impacting the demographic they were trying to reach, then they need to learn a bit more about the South. Any candidate who trots out Southern stereotypes, for whatever reason, needs to get whacked upside the head.

Oh, I hear you; it’s just as challenging to approach different segments of the African-American community, particularly since most white Americans do not understand how subcultures within this minority subculture work. But there were a lot of white male southerners who undoubtedly heard Dean’s remarks and said, Damn, that could be me…and nobody has made any effort to reach out to them, especially when we know their party apparatus has been completely under lock and key.

What is missing here is better local effort, as I know I’ve said up thread; I don’t think much of Mudcat Saunders’ ability to help bridge the deficiency, since he deliberately told a portion of the Democratic constituency to go to hell. If local folks were able to organize more effectively, canvass and ID voters more thoroughly along with better GOTV, there would be no need for Saunders at all. Dean at least understands that all politics are local, having committed to sending state organizers to work in the field as part of the 50-State Strategy. If there is progress at the local level, I don’t think you’ll hear Dean say another thing about the subject demographic. They’ll simply be Democratic voters. (And it’s the same all over — we have the same issues here, only different faces behind key dropout demographics. I can point to one municipality of 7000 people that failed to turn out to vote, of which a majority are a single racial group; we lost a key seat because they didn’t show up to vote for their best interests, but they’d been ignored repeatedly and the polls revealed how badly.) Granted, Saunders is promoting a single campaign, but the campaign will not make ground in this region if the basics underpinning the entire party are not met.

I do not doubt Dean’s good intentions.

But, candidates have to be very careful and savvy about things they say that are “quoteable” on the internet, and may lead to huge misperceptions.

Most people, even the internet savvy, will not know about the full speech that Dean gave, and will not have heard him on conference calls.

Your comments about alienating this segment I can agree with. But, whatever the nuances of what Dean said, framing the reality in this way was not politically astute.

If a candidate doesn’t get it that the words they use are just as likely, or more likely, to insult those who don’t like the stereotyping of Southerners, and that those words are not actually reaching/ impacting the demographic they were trying to reach, then they need to learn a bit more about the South. Any candidate who trots out Southern stereotypes, for whatever reason, needs to get whacked upside the head.

Rayne @ 214

No. He was specifically addressing a demographic that used to be Dixiecrat and has gone Republican. Think Sam Nunn back in the day and the folks who would have voted him in office; that segment has gone Republican and against their own best interests in doing so.

Kind of like what we in Michigan refer to as “Reagan Democrats” — union workers who had good jobs and increasingly voted single issues like God, Guns and Gays, but are now without jobs and without hope of finding manufacturing jobs anywhere else in the U.S. In Michigan that demographic — the Chevy pickup loaded with a deer carcass in November — will more readily swing Dem. In the south, that demographic is more reluctant to swing left, and Dean understood that it was going to take more work to make that shift happen.

Rayne, I can’t remember ever before having disagreed with a comment you have made here.

But on this one, I have to do so. And strongly. “He was specifically addressing a demographic that used to be Dixiecrat and has gone Republican.”

Exactly how was he specifically addressing a demographic? Although he may wished that his words were heard only by that “demographic”, trust me, I am not part of that demographic, but I was listening. As someone outside the “demographic”. As, I’m sure many others were, in these internet days. If you have not lived in the South, you have no idea that “Reagan Democrats” and “guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks” is NOT in any way equivalent in terms of words or perception.

VG, we may have to agree to disagree — but the link provided upthread was to an article that pulled out only bits and pieces from one event at which Dean spoke, and not a transcript of what he said in its entirety, nor what he said on multiple occasions that fleshed out his point. I’ve heard him speak in conference calls about this topic.

I’ll agree that the framing wasn’t the most elegant, but the words conjure up a specific demographic — white male voter who feels strongly about his southern heritage but also feels threatened because of what they are repeatedly told are threats to their culture (fed by religious/political folks like Ralph Reed and others of his ilk), but who are desperately in need of real protections for their jobs, their family farms, their health, their social safety net not provided by the Republicans who encourage their continued fear.

If Democrats ignore this segment courting only the African-American and Hispanic vote in the south, they run the risk of increasing the divisions and driving the at-risk white male demographic further towards the right. This is dangerous because it is the same demographic that may have played a role in the lock-down of the party apparatus in the south (Sara at The Next Hurrah wrote about it, mentioned that in one state Dean had to sue to get charter-type paperwork out of a file cabinet that had been locked up for years, preventing the party from full operation in that state).

i so love the apostrophe that – well – they jump out.

if y’all ‘d be gud’nuf ta fix:

“While we EarthFirst!er’s depended on the group campsite there for our logistics.”

by changing to:

“While we EarthFirst!ers depended on the group campsite there for our logistics.”

I’d be ‘head o’er heels’

love

kirk

Valley Girl @ 208

Howard Dean quote

“I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,”

…..makes it apparent that Dean has a rather stereotypical view of the average Southerner….

No. He was specifically addressing a demographic that used to be Dixiecrat and has gone Republican. Think Sam Nunn back in the day and the folks who would have voted him in office; that segment has gone Republican and against their own best interests in doing so.

Kind of like what we in Michigan refer to as “Reagan Democrats” — union workers who had good jobs and increasingly voted single issues like God, Guns and Gays, but are now without jobs and without hope of finding manufacturing jobs anywhere else in the U.S. In Michigan that demographic — the Chevy pickup loaded with a deer carcass in November — will more readily swing Dem. In the south, that demographic is more reluctant to swing left, and Dean understood that it was going to take more work to make that shift happen.

Rayne, I can’t remember ever before having disagreed with a comment you have made here.

But on this one, I have to do so. And strongly. “He was specifically addressing a demographic that used to be Dixiecrat and has gone Republican.”

Exactly how was he specifically addressing a demographic? Although he may wished that his words were heard only by that “demographic”, trust me, I am not part of that demographic, but I was listening. As someone outside the “demographic”. As, I’m sure many others were, in these internet days. If you have not lived in the South, you have no idea that “Reagan Democrats” and “guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks” is NOT in any way equivalent in terms of words or perception.

Has the John Edwards campaign reacted to Saunders two pieces on Swampland yet?

Is Saunders really a consultant for Edwards? Or is he a plant intent on destroying support for Edwards?

I notice that many of the comments on the blog mentioned that there would be no more money and support going to Edwards as long as this guy keeps insulting the people who faithfully pull the lever for a Democratic President every election cycle.

I sent an e-mail to Edwards linking to both Saunders’ columns in Swampland, informing him that I’ll stop giving money to his campaign as long as the Edwards campaign does not apologize for Saunders’ totally uncalled-for vitriol.

Yes.

Looking at what he does (as opposed to what he says about what he does) Mudcat destroys the Edwards campaign from the inside.

He alienates the blogosphere and – in the same act – forces Edwards to pick sides in “Southern” vs. “Modern/(modem).”

Fifth column work.

OK – Campaigns can’t “fire” their followers.

From a forest defense “basecamp” perspective, I feel their pain.

Ever spent your morning talking to the California State Park Ranger about the health problem at your group campsite?

Because of two assholes in your group….

And the two “salt of the earth” types they exited.

Our two guests were washing their hairy fetid asses in the public sinks at the campground.

Every morning.

In the public bathrooms right across from the Rangers’ station.

While we EarthFirst!er’s depended on the group campsite there for our logistics.

Our “colorful guests” wrecked our relations with California State Parks – a vital ally – for years.

Our two guests – when confronted – grudgingly ageed to stop and pulled the “rural culture” shtick at the same time.

We were oppressing them – a city vs local thing.

Yeah. We were so oppressing them.

“Don’t wash shit out of your ass hairs in the sinks where dozens of activists brush their teeth each morning”

Such oppression.

Our two “guests” claimed to live in some tiny fucking hamlet. Real EF! forest defenders from that hamlet showed up – they’d never seen the asshole washers.

We were punked by two assholes.

Edwards got punked by mudcat.

mudcat drove a wedge between the blogosphere and the Dem candidate with the most progressive economic policies and values.

qui bono?

Edwards got punked by one asshole.

Hey Edwards staffers – read The Hunt For Karla

Find your moles.

Paranoid?

Infiltrator John Glass arrived at our muddy, post-campaign, breaking-up 1997 Headwaters basecamp for a peaceful campaign against one corporation – Pacific Lumber.

Edwards’ campaign confronts whole industries – whole wedges of the megacorp pie.

Edwards staffers:

Keep your friends.

Follow the failures.

Don’t give them resources.

Don’t give them access.

Don’t PUT THEM ON YOUR FUCKING MEDIA TEAM.

ahem.

Our tradecraft bankrupted Hurwitz’s timber grab.

Your tradecraft can bankrupt Hillary’s power grab.

Find it.

Read LeCarre.

And quit letting mudcat wash his hairy fetid ass in the Senator’s sink.

Or at least have the Senator shut the bathroom door.