A week later...

...and Dean's appeal to the flaggers still haunts him. There have been some big Dean stories since he spouted off to the Des Moines Register, and there are big stories to come, but this one has remarkable legs.

From David Broder...

"The can of worms that Howard Dean opened with his ill-conceived effort to identify himself as "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" is not one that can be resealed with the words of regret the former Vermont governor belatedly offered. By inadvertently reopening the deepest wound within the nation, the race issue, Dean hurt himself and did a disservice to his party.

When I was with him in Iowa more than a year ago, the line was somewhat different. Then he was promising his outreach would include "the guys driving pickups with gun racks on the back." When his opponents started criticizing the stands that had earned Dean an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association back in Vermont, he switched the description to the flag decal."

(So much for the arguement that he should have said "gun rack")

The New York Post points out some of the real, measurable cost of the Doctor's prescription for the South...

"November 10, 2003 -- HOWARD DEAN'S controversial crack about "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" has cost him the endorsement of a top New York Democrat, The Post has learned.

Democratic sources said Senate Minority Leader David Paterson of Manhattan, the highest-ranking African-American in the Legislature, dropped a planned endorsement because he found Dean's comment racially offensive."

I don't know if it's enough to cost him the Presidency, or even the nomination, but it's certainly a story with staying power. The real problem is that it's part of a pattern. "Straight talk" doesn't have to mean just saying any damn thing that pops into your head, but for Ho Ho, it often seems to.