The Mississippi Republican Party joins Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Jamie Franks and U.S. Senate candidate Ronnie Musgrove in welcoming their leader, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to Jackson on Friday.
“I’m thrilled that Howard Dean is coming to Mississippi. We wish he would come more often,” Mississippi Republican Party Chairman-Elect Brad White said. “As a matter of fact, if he would like to stay for remainder of the election, we’ll be happy to find him a place to stay.”
Dean, known for his northeastern liberal views and disparaging comments about the South, will pass through the state on a cross-country voter registration effort for State Parties.
“When you look behind the curtain of the Mississippi Democratic Party that Ronnie Musgrove and Chairman Jamie Franks try to portray, you find that it is Howard Dean pulling the strings,” White said. “They try to claim they are different and independent, but the national Democrats are running Ronnie Musgrove’s campaign, and when Howard Dean rides the Obama bus into town, is the Mississippi Democratic leadership hopping on board to get their orders.”
While Dean is selling his liberal brand of snake oil to the crowd in Jackson tomorrow, conservative U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker will be touring McNeely Plastics in Clinton, Mississippi, talking about job creation while receiving the endorsement of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association. Wicker’s event is open to the press.
Below are just a few past comments regarding Howard Dean and his questionable views on the South:
Dean In 2003: “White folks in the South who drive pick-up trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back ought to be voting with us, not them because their kids don’t have health insurance, either, and their kids need better schools, too!” (CNN’s “Crossfire,” 2/21/03)
Zell Miller: Dean Knows Nothing About Southerners. “‘Howard Dean knows about as much about the South as a hog knows about Sunday,’ [Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA)] said. ‘This must be his Southern strategy. And I can tell you right now, that that’s the same kind of stereotype, that’s the same kind of character trait that I write about in this book. I write about in this book in 1988 Michael Dukakis coming to Georgia and having this rally, and they had all these bales of hay stashed around here and there, like it was some kind of set from the television show ‘Hee Haw.’ That’s not what the South is.'” (Terry M. Neal, “Howard Dean: The Targeted Wing Of The Democratic Party,” The Washington Post, 11/5/03)
Dean Says Southern Baptists Have Subservient Wives. Dean: “In many religions, the idear [sic] is to go back to the old teaching that women were to be subrogated [sic] to their husbands… That is the argument that many religions – look at, look at the Southern Baptists. They have just adopted the notion that you have to be subservient to your husband.” Stephen Moore: “But marriages have been healthy in Southern Baptist – you’re denigrating that view.” Dean: “I am not denigrating that view, I am making the statement that when we are talking about restoring marriage, excuse me if I could just finish for a change, my point is this: If we are trying to rekindle marriage, it isn’t that marriage needs to be rekindled in the traditional Roman Catholic or Orthodox Jewish or Southern Baptist – marriages have not been in a lot of trouble in those traditional communities in the first place. We’re talking about the broad sectarian part of America, and that does require a new definition somehow because the role of women has changed. For those religions that won’t accept that, that’s one thing. But you have to find a way to fix that…” (CBC/PBS’ “The Editors,” 12/5/98)
Dean Discusses “Poor People” In South. “[P]eople who vote who fly the Confederate flag, I think they are wrong, because I think the Confederate flag is a racist symbol. But I think there are lot of poor people who fly that flag because the Republicans have been dividing us by race since 1968, with their Southern race strategy.” (CNN/Rock The Vote Democrat Presidential Candidate Forum, Boston, MA, 11/4/03)
MSGOP Press Release
7/18/8
