Dean accidentally speaks his mind on the Republican Party

August 17, 2008

I’ve noticed that Howard Dean caused a stir this weekend with some relatively innocuous remarks, but I’m not sure what all the fuss is over.

In an interview with National Public Radio on Friday, Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, referred to the Republican Party as the white party, seemingly accidental.

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party,” Dean said, chuckling, “because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.”

Sure, it’s probably not best to literally refer to the GOP as the “White Party,” but Dean realized he’d misspoken, he laughed, corrected himself, and moved on.

But, given that race has suddenly become one of the Republicans’ favorite subjects, the GOP was not about to let this slide. RNC Chairman Mike Duncan issued a statement reading, “Howard Dean’s comments on race and gender today are disappointing and wrong. His efforts to divide Americans are an insult to all our nation’s citizens and have absolutely no place in the national dialogue.”

The McCain campaign said something similar, arguing that Dean tried to “use gender and race to divide voters.”

Was Dean really trying to “divide Americans”? Of course not. In fact, his comments didn’t seem especially controversial.

The DNC has been sending around the full context of the exchange:

NPR: Another bit of news that caught our eyes this week, the U.S. Census Department released a report projecting that whites will become a minority in the US by the year 2042, that’s about 8 years earlier than expected. How do you think it would affect your approach to building the Democratic Party? You famously declared that Democrats should pursue voters who had confederate flags in their cars, meaning that Democrats should continue to court culturally conservative southern whites. Do these new numbers suggest that perhaps that strategy doesn’t really make sense?

Dean: I think we should court all voters and we haven’t courted Southern conservative working class folks and we need to do that. But you know our Party has been a no majority party for a long time. The fact is that the Democratic Party is made up of lots of different people and we’re all minorities in our party. That’s the way it’s been for a long, long time. We’re the party of opportunity. The demographic trends favor the Democrats because we are an inclusive, accepting party. And if you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, excuse me, than in the Republican Party because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hardworking people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.

I doubt Dean deliberately was calling the GOP the “White Party.” If that was his goal, this was a rather clumsy way of doing it.

Regardless, this seems to have all the makings of a Michael Kinsley Moment — a political figure committing a “gaffe” by accidentally telling the truth.

kupbezrecepty.com

As John McCain would say, “Gotta keep your sense of humor.”

  • Repubs have nothing against blacks. If they know their place and are sufficiently detached from reality, they are more than welcomed.

  • Dean didn’t misspeak at all, in fact he’s been saying this for years, which accounts for his success as a political candidate (not so much) and as chair of the DNC (a great deal more). Sharp readers may notice a similarity between Dean’s comments in ’04 and since and my analysis of the image of the political parties following the McCain story below. Two additions: To some extent, but by no means completely, I’m talking about older voters, along with white voters one of the most reliable voting blocs. And while this image of Republicans dates from the ’50s and before, it got significant reinforcement (hard to overstate how much) from the “Reagan Revolution” of the ’80s. As the Republican party was turning into the malformed growling beast we see now, it was portrayed all over the media as the party of “real Americans,” giving middle Americans a fantasy image to live with while their security and economic well-being was stolen from them.

  • If I were Howard Dean, I would have responded to criticism of the statement something like this:

    “On the night Barack Obama clinched the nomination of our party, John McCain chose to give a speech that, according to the line on the television screens, came from New Orleans. In fact, it came from a suburb of New Orleans. New Orleans is 65% Black. The suburb is 65% white. But even though it is 35% black, there was not one black face in the audience.

    “I’m proud to belong to a party that doesn’t — and doesn’t need to — use such subterfuge. Democrats attract blacks and whites, straights and gays, people whose descendants came on the Mayflower and whose parents came, legally, yesterday.

    “And that is why I’m proud to be a Democrat.”

  • As far as I can tell this is an example of Dean injecting race where it need not be injected and handing the Republicans another excuse to play racial politics. I mean, seriously, how can anyone fault them for using race against Obama when dean is using race to make digs at the Republicans? Also as a white person who intends to vote for Obama I find it a bit insulting. Because of my skin color I have to be lumped in with the likes of George Bush?

  • It’s amusing to see the party of Strom Thurman and Jesse Helms complain about “us[ing] gender and race to divide voters”.

  • Fine, “The GOP is the party that has consistently demonized and attempted to disenfranchise non-white people.”

    Is that better?

    I hope they trot out Kenneth Blackwell (Re-writing the rules for voting in Ohio); Michael Steele (deceptive sample ballots distributed at voting places in predominantly African-American neighborhoods); Clarence Thomas (because no one likes him) and the assholes who gave us the “Martin Luther King, Jr was a Republican,” commercial (I’ve got some rotten vegetables and eggs in the fridge).

    Or maybe Alan Keyes will come screaming to their defense.

    Whether they like it or not. Heh.

  • The Republicans are experts at playing the media and swinging public opinion. They have a simple strategy that they employ over and over again…project their tactics onto the Dems —

    * They race-bait and then accuse Dems of playing the race card.

    * They lie and then accuse Dems of being liars.

    * They engage in class-warfare and then accuse Dems of engaging in class-warfare.

    * The apply double-standards and then accuse Dems of applying double-standards.

    * They see to destroy a person’s character and then accuse Dems of character assissination.

    Say it first, say it loud, and say it again and again and again…That’s the Republican Party.

  • Well, dress me up in a pair of sunglasses and call me Joliet Jake—Doc Dean just reminded the world that the GOP’s secret new-world-order brotherhood name is the North American White People’s Party!

  • Prup @6…. I hope he takes your suggestion to heart. It would make for a nice bombshell with the fawning media personalities. Especially since they wouldn’t be able to deny that fact.

  • “Pap Attacks” has a good rant on this topic of catering to the south claiming that they are lost and good riddance we don’
    t need them. That Dems should concentrate on the rest of America and forget the south. 95% of their population vote against their self interests and support a southern aristocracy that would hav3 them don confederate uniforms and take union bullets to support the very people that enslave them. Southern progressives can fend for them selves and dems must lose the idea that it takes a white southern male to make a dem president. Apparently the south just hasn’t hit a big enough bottom yet to motivate them to run this republican aristocracy out of power. Dems don’t need the south to win the presidency and catering to the Jesse Helms types in order to become more appealing is a failed endeavor from the start. Dem party does not need to change it’s behavior, the south needs to change it’s behavior.

  • Steve, No need to defend Howard Dean, to explain how he chuckled and then immediately corrected himself, etc.: your kicker is the point, he did speak the truth. The Republican Party has forever been the party of country club “haves” and the Democratic Party has always been the place for people of all colors, women (of all colors), workers, children’s issues, fair access to legal rights and health care, and any other group or public policy marginalized because the “haves” could have it if they chose and the have nots — the rest of us — had to fight for it (and not always win). Instead of explaining Dean’s non-gaffe, we should be congratulate him with joy and enthusiasm for a) speaking the truth, b) having the nerve and confidence to do so, and c) getting that meme out there for all to see and think about. To explain him away, even though you agree in essence, accepts the frame that he erred. He didn’t, and more power to him.

  • The better point is that whites are the only demographic group that votes for both political parties. So as the Republican Party completes its collapse, a better quesiton is how will politics function with only one political party with groups like Hispanic and blacks functions as power bases inside the Democratic Party.

    How will the federal government apply the voting rights act when the Democratic party is the only relevant political party? How will elections function when the Democratic Party Primary is the only relevant election? And last, is it possible in the U.S. for there to be two political parties that splits the any non-white demographic between two parties?

  • Because of my skin color I have to be lumped in with the likes of George Bush? — D. Mason, @7

    Every dog is a mammal. But, not every mammal is a dog.

    That’s what’s wrong with your “logic”.

  • superdestroyer, @18

    If you have survived, for well over a year, with one thought, and *one thought only* in your head — that we’re about to see the dawn of a single party in US… What makes you think we couldn’t survive with a single party, which would still contain many, many, points of view (thoughts)?

    Not that I think that’s likely to happen. More likely, we’ll see the kind of multi-party system like those in Europe, and a different way of building coalitions (without, rather than within).

  • Libra,

    There are good, mathematical, reasons to suspect that any multi-party phase would rapidly devolve into a two-party system. This is because the presidency is such a powerful office — and one which cannot be shared. Intuitively, any party which takes the presidency would inexorably drive all other parties into a more-or-less unified opposition.

  • Actually, the GOP is the White People’s White Supremacist Confederate Traitor National Socialist Worker’s Party.

    Always nice to see Howard Dean speak truth.

  • Well put, Lew Scannon. This is the best demo yet of what Republicans can get away with and what Democrats can’t.

  • “Someone has mentioned race in America. Quick, to the Batshit Cave!”

    Sorry, TAiO—McStars-n-Bars threw the Batshitmobile at the Russians all week long, with those daily conferences to Saakashvili and incoherent, Al-Haig-like mutterings about sending his “personal envoy” (Benedict Joe) to Tbilisi. It landed in front of a T-90—and got thoroughly mangled. Gotta hand it to the Russians, though—when they put something “under the bus,” they do not mess around.

    And Mr. Cleaver—“Actually, the GOP is the White People’s White Supremacist Confederate Traitor National Socialist Worker’s Party?” You forgot the part about the “Adulterous Xenophobic Inbreeders’ Society” (AXIS for short).

  • Libra,

    I did not mention survivial. My quesiton is what will politics and government be like as a one party state. Howard Dean’s claim support by belief that the U.S. is headed toward becoming a one party state. First, it is obvious to the leadership of the Democratic Party that every non-white voter added to the rolls is an almost certain vote for the Democratic Party. Second, Howard Dean is obviously aware that swing voters are almost all white voters.

    So the question is what happens to politics in the U.S. when one party is certain to get more than 50% of the votes without effort? The second question is how will people behaviors change when they can no longer vote with their feet?

    My guess is that interests in politics will decline significantly in a one party state. Also, government spending will have to increase much faster than GDP growth to keep the different power blocks in the one party state happy. And last, corruption will definitely increase. When people can no longer have the ability to make changes through the government, the groups out of power will have to resort to corruption.

  • I’m going to call bullshit on this one. If a republican had done something similar, we would be making a big deal of it.

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