I still haven't read a transcript or seen a video of the whole speech, but this morning I read the controversial
quote, which most people have been getting, in U.S. News: "The republicans aren't very friendly to different types of people....It's pretty much a white, christian party."
Well, 44 per cent of Hispanics did vote for Bush 43, says Gloria Borger in "If Politics Were Like Life".
Then we watched a recording of last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. According to Jon, the republican party
is in fact 84% white and christian. Ken Mehlman, Dean's opposite member as head of the RNC, was shown reminding us that he's jewish(I'm sure they're glad to have you, Ken, but you're in the minority among republicans). Next, Jon parodied the desertion of Dean by prominent democrats such as Joseph Biden and Nacy Pelosi. I myself was hard put to defend this quote.
Dean's quote WAS quite reductive. The neo-con party, especially as it is today, DOES in fact support the interests of white christians. But I kind of wished Dean had stuck to the policy of leaving religion out of it. It's definitely a departure from Dean's usual(if not subtle) then at least more complex style. Homer nodded. But I have to ask myself, if the republicans won't leave the
drippingly hypocritical democrats-lack-moral-values charge alone, then don't we have to fight fire with fire? Yes.
Background: Dean wanted to represent the whole U.S., but as a strategist, he does not(nor did he) believe in courting the swing vote or triangulating to republicans. Rousing the base-R-Dean. Bill Clinton did win more votes with somewhat centrist
language, and Dean did joke at one point that maybe the huge market for a disciplined liberal message doesn't really exist as
much as he once thought.
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