Barbour's use of state flag could win or lose votes - MS gov race

[TacticalPeek]

Barbour's use of state flag could win or lose votes

By Julie Goodman
[e-mail]
and Patrice Sawyer
[e-mail]

Some of Republican gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour's campaign material features the state flag and its Confederate battle emblem, a symbol many black voters find offensive.

Barbour wears a lapel pin with the U.S. and state flags and he is in a photograph on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a neo-Confederate group accused of racist views. Barbour says he doesn't know anything about the council. The picture was taken at a council-sponsored barbecue in July used to raise money for private academy school buses.

But Barbour says he wants to be the state's most successful Republican vote-getter among African Americans and has held closed-door strategy meetings with minorities. If elected, he says he will create a "colorblind" state government.

To some observers, Barbour's strategy could cost him votes, but to others it could give Barbour an edge in a tight race with Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove

more

http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0310/01/m03.html

stolen unabashedly from atrios.blogspot.com, who has more good stuff re:



:)

[bluestateguy]

1. The flag

When MS voters had the chance to vote on the flag in 2001 didn't they vote like 63% to keep the flag? I also heard anecdotal cases of black voters in Mississippi yawning over the whole fiag thing.

[kskiska]

2. Isn't it funny how guys like Bob Barr, Trent Lott, and Haley Barbour

can attend events sponsored by the CCC, and pose for countless pictures with members and never have a clue as to what this group stands for? I guess they didn't see the Confederate flags and the sheets hanging in on the coat rack.

[0rganism]

3. Well, for once, an irrefutably true headline,

I take it as Proof that the bar has been lowered sufficiently.