"Iowahawk" Blog
Dapper Dogpatch Dandies Dig Dem Dean
Versace Holler, AL – Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s controversial Southern Strategy appears to be reaping big electoral benefits, as a new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll released today shows the former Vermont governor holding a commanding lead among self-described “born again antiwar redneck metrosexuals.”
The poll of 1053 adults – conducted December 26-27 at monster truck peace rallies and accessory swap meets throughout the South – showed Dean leading closest Democratic rival Dennis Kucinich 51% - 22%, with strong pluralities naming Dean as the candidate “most likely to end the war, and the horrible spring casualwear collection at Farm & Fleet” and “least in need of a complete Christian-based makeover."
The Dean campaign trumpeted the poll results as vindicating their two-month push to establish the candidate as a election force in the South, and rebuffing charges of pandering from his Democratic competitors.
“These results show that God fearing, fashion-forward rural males see that Dr. Dean is serious when he says he wants them back in the Democratic fold,” said spokesman Calvin Pepperidge. “He hears their voices and has responded in their own language - ‘we’re here, we’re fabulous, let’s put on Armani and go gig some frogs.’”
US News and World Report political analyst Michael Barone said the results also showed that Dean thinking strategically beyond the Democratic campaign, to the Fall 2004 general election.
“Since 1968, the GOP has held a near lock on the South in presidential campaigns,” said Barone. “Dean seems to realize that in order to defeat Bush he will have to pick up more than a few Dixie states, so he is directly reaching out to Southerners. As he understands them, anyway.”
Sweet Loft Alabama
The outreach effort has not been without its controversies, however. In November, Dean declared himself a “metrosexual,” and later said he wanted to be “the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in the pickup trucks.” The remarks sparked a firestorm of criticism from other candidates, including John F. Kerry who denounced Dean for “invoking the shameful legacy of the Ford F-150, its Klan-friendly Supercab, and its ugly Jim Crow history of peeing Calvin stickers.”
Dean refused to back down, however. In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press he asked host Tim Russert, “where is it written that a man who drives a pickup and watches NASCAR does not want a good job, a salon manicure, and diplomatic partnership with the French?”
In it early incarnations, the Dean Southern Strategy was plagued by miscues. In South Carolina, female Dean campaign staffers tried to infiltrate local Hooters restaurants as waitresses, but were thwarted by corporate underarm hair guidelines. “Not only were these early tactics unproductive, they threatened to undercut Dean with his established base of fussy condescending Northeastern urban elites,” said Barone.
Instead, the Dean camp eventually developed a regional strategy to appeal to Southern white men without alienating their base. “We decided to focus on the traditionally underrepresented effeminate religious white trash peace community,” said Pepperidge. “The South has a teeming cauldron of hillbilly antimilitarist fashion divas, just waiting to be heard.”
The campaign wasted no time in courting their vote. In Waycross GA, Dean gave a blistering denouncement of the war, accusing Bush of “sending Southern men and women to die in an ill-defined war, dressed in last-year fatigues so hideous even Christina Aguilera wouldn’t be caught dead in them.” Later, at a Kentucky truck stop, Dean promised a “national program for installing hair product dispensers in every interstate restroom by 2007, right next to the novelty condom machines.”
Fix It, Jesus
Recently, Dean has upped the ante in the South by directly invoking religion. In an interview with the Boston Globe earlier this week, Dean described himself as a “committed believer in Jesus Christ” and said he would be mentioning “Jesus and God” while stumping in the South.
Dean’s recent touting of his Christian beliefs caught many by surprise, as he had previously avoided discussing his personal religious views. In a CNN interview with Judy Woodruff, he cryptically described leaving the Episcopal church for the Congregationalism after “a dispute over a bike path.” He later revealed how he became a Zoroastrian after a tiff over a lunch tab, a Scientologist following an argument over a missing pair of hedge trimmers, and later converted to Nordic Pantheism after a $6 late fee at Blockbuster.
Dean’s newfound emphasis on religion raised the eyebrows of some analysts, who believe it will be difficult for him to reconcile his beliefs with his ardent pro-choice views. At an National Abortion Rights Action League fundraiser earlier this year, Dean recalled with pride “opening my very first abortion counseling stand, when the other kids on the block were all selling lemonade.”
In the Globe interview, Dean took exception to suggestions that Christianity was incompatible with his views on political issues.
“Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised, people who were left behind, prostitutes, the poor, people who had never spent a few years skiing and getting their heads together,'' Dean said. “No wonder Jesus is such a big deal in the South, like pickups. Plus, he liked to go fishing with his buddies.”
“Just like Jesus, I will reach out to the poor, the ignorant and the disenfranchised,” said Dean. “Don’t worry Dixie, help is on the way.”
Friday the Dean campaign announced that the candidate would embark on an aggressive religion-themed tour of the South, including tent revivals in Alabama, faith healing in Mississippi, an Appalachian snake-handling ceremony in North Carolina and a Santeria chicken sacrifice in Miami’s Little Haiti. For a $100 internet campaign donation, the candidate said he would also offer evangelical Christians five minute prostheletising sessions with his Jewish wife and son.
Two Snaps Up
Dean’s new approach to the South has won praise from many in the fey religious stock car community, Ronnie Dale Linton, a salon esthetician from Ft. Cruddup TN, praised Dean for his war opposition, Christian values, fashion instincts and Dale Earnhardt window sticker. “Plus, under Dean’s economic aid program, I will finally be able to rehab my pole shed as a studio loft,” he added.
“Puh-lease. We don’t need the president to be the world’s policeman,” said Randy Wayne Hilliard, an unemployed wine sommelier from Nagodoches, TX. “Well, maybe the world’s fashion policeman. Hel-lo!”
Dean’s Southern success has again sent rivals back to the drawing board, and has even spawned a few imitators. General Wesley Clark recently remarked that he was “fussy, when fussy wasn’t cool,” while Kucinich has scheduled a massive antiwar summit at the Shoji Tabuji Dinner Theater in Branson, MO.
Not to be outdone, a source inside the John Kerry says the candidate “would no longer concede an inch in the South.”
“Senator Kerry will shortly be announcing an amicable divorce with his wife,” said the spokesman on condition of anonymity. “And he has some fine-lookin’ cousins.”
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