From today’s NY Daily News, this excerpt from a Q&A with Gen. Wesley Clark:

Q: And what is Clark’s reaction to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s pandering comment that that he, Dean, wants the votes of Southerners, i.e. “guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks”? A: “Well, he shouldn’t have said those things. I think all Americans – and this is a joke! – all Americans, even if they’re from the South and ’stupid,’ should be represented.”

I love this! The more they talk, the deeper the hole this hapless bench of Democrats dig for themselves. They can’t bring themselves to utter a discouraging word about the disgraceful race-baiter Al Sharpton, for fear of upsetting African-Americans, but they keep trashing the sensibilities of working-class white Southerners — and now with Clark’s remark, working-class white Southerners themselves. Karl Rove must be on cloud nine.

One does not have to approve of displaying the Confederate flag to realize that there are quite a few people who do, and they vote. You don’t appeal to their reason, to try to persuade them that it’s in their interest to vote for you, by denigrating them as “stupid.” Is there any other social or ethnic group in America that the Democrats would feel comfortable speaking of in this manner, whatever the group’s flaws? There’s a very good reason the South is ever more Republican: very many Southerners understand perfectly well that the Democratic Party has contempt for their values. And for them.