That wasn't my point. They held her back in special ed.
Sorry I misread it. Dean just doesn't come over well in the Black Baptist Churches. Now, Clinton, he would make a fine Casket Salesman!
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Black voters are a key as Dean courts South
By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff, 10/14/2003
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The South for Howard Dean is foreign territory. The presidential aspirant grew up in New York's East Hampton and Manhattan and made his name in Vermont. His only time in the South was spent working on a Florida farm as a teenager.
The man is a Yankee.
But having leapt to the forefront in New Hampshire and Iowa among Democratic contenders, Dean is now trying to establish himself in the region that was pivotal to President Bush's win in 2000 as well as Bill Clinton's victory in 1992 and that is an expected battleground in 2004. Republicans are strong here, but Democrats see hope in a strong turnout of African-Americans, who make up nearly half of Democratic voters in the Deep South, and more in South Carolina, which holds the crucial first Southern primary.
With that in mind, on a recent Friday night Dean marched into a town hall meeting at the Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church in this coastal city. His campaign was particularly excited about the gathering, billing it as an opportunity for Dean to connect with black voters. Indeed, the pews were crammed with Southerners eager to hear the former Vermont governor, some with cameras to capture the moment, some from as far away as Raleigh, N.C. And many seemed quite taken by him.
But the audience was nearly all white, many of them Dean fans who had heard about the event through the campaign. The church's largely black congregation had been told of Dean's visit the Sunday before at services, but few came.
For Dean, like other Northern candidates, South Carolina is a potential tipping point, a state that could derail early leads from New Hampshire as it did for Senator John S. McCain in the Republican primary in 2000. Southerners fare well in polls in the state, with native son Senator John Edwards of North Carolina leading the pack and retired Army general Wesley K. Clark nipping at his heels. Clark is a double threat with his Arkansas roots and his military background, which might resonate with the large numbers of retired military personnel in the state.
Political observers say that regional favoritism could come out in the wash for the candidate able to make significant inroads with black voters, many of whom are believed to be unaligned, having fervently supported the Clinton-Gore ticket for so long and now resurfacing to find that many of the Democratic candidates are without significant ties to the black community. And no Democratic candidate has received more criticism for failing to build a diverse base of support than Dean.
"Nobody is going to be elected president without mobilizing this key constituency," said Richard Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. "They have been the most loyal members of the party, and if you can't motivate the African-American community, you can't win."
The competition to capture the black vote is fierce. US Representative James Clyburn, the sole black in the South Carolina delegation, is being pursued aggressively by Democratic contenders. "They're all courting him and seeking his advice and counsel," said Hope Derrick, his spokeswoman.
The candidates also are investing heavily with visits and money. Seven of the nine candidates cleared schedules to attend a forum over the weekend sponsored by the South Carolina NAACP. (Dean said he could not be present because of parents' weekend at Yale University, where his daughter is a student. Another Democratic contender, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, said he could not be there because of longstanding commitments in New Hampshire.)
The two African-Americans in the race, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun, have gained more traction here than in other states.
How Dean will fare in the South is the bubbling political question now.
For one thing, his family's Northern roots date to the 1600s. Others point to Dean's status as a liberal -- one who supported civil unions for gays and lesbians and opposed the war in Iraq -- as a potential drawback in the minds of conservative white voters. Those conservatives' numbers could be larger than usual in the Feb. 3 South Carolina primary because there is no Republican presidential primary, and independents and Republicans are permitted to vote in the Democratic contest.
Among African-Americans, Dean faces unique hurdles as well, having stewarded a nearly all-white state, where minorities make up less than 3 percent of the population. His campaign acknowledges that Dean is only now concentrating on the South, but campaign manager Joe Trippi said he expects to build a base of loyalists in minority communities.
To be sure, Dean has been one of the more outspoken candidates in discussing race. He has made his support for affirmative action a fixture in his stump speech and has contended -- with opponents taking him to task on the matter -- that he is the only candidate talking about race before white audiences. At the Morris Brown church, Dean's references to race were passing ones, invoking the name of Martin Luther King Jr. and heralding the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Dean also has made known his friendship with two African-Americans who were his roommates during his freshman year at Yale. One of those men, Ralph Dawson, a Manhattan lawyer and South Carolina native, is proving a powerful boost for Dean in the state, having put Dean in touch with David Mack, the chairman-elect of the Legislative Black Caucus and a health care consultant who is chairing Dean's South Carolina campaign.
Dean has little of the down-home charm of Clinton, a near political deity to many African-American voters. His staunch refusal to discuss his personal life on the trail and his avowed adherence to policy talk -- with an aversion to chatty asides -- could not be more unlike the folksy Clinton or the chatty Edwards.
But some African-American voters say he brings other qualities to the table: Coming from a white state, Dean has a history of few entanglements over difficult racial issues. Others say Dean strikes them as a man whose message stays constant, no matter the constituency, an important factor for some blacks who say some Democrats have lapsed in promises to their community.
The Rev. Joseph Darby from the Morris Brown church put it this way: "Governor Dean shows remarkable empathy for African-American voters with hardly any African-Americans in his own state. Having grown up down here, [Edwards] is more familiar with the political landscape and with the political catchwords that resound with voters. But Governor Dean is learning the catchwords very quickly."
One catchword, Darby said, is jobs, particularly in a state where African-Americans are twice as likely to be out of work as whites. Dean -- as other candidates have been sure to do -- threaded talk of textile-mill jobs gone overseas through his speeches here, at Darby's church and an earlier rally at the College of Charleston, where Dean drew both white and black students.
But it was his antiwar stance that grabbed many at the college. Sharea Weldon, 19, knew little about Dean before the rally but came away committed.
"It was very convincing," said the African-American biology major from Ridgeville, S.C. "He's so antiwar, and that's a good thing. When President Clinton was in office, there was none of that drama. As soon as Bush came into office, it's been war and terrorist attacks. So I think we need a president who is antiwar."
But Kwadjo Campbell, an African-American city councilor in Charleston, said that while he is intrigued by Dean, he remains committed to Sharpton.
"Sharpton has the best chance to electrify the African-American vote across the country," he said.
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