November 15, 2003

In the South we have what is commonly termed a conservative Democrat. These individuals are people who have always been members of the Democrat party, yet have conservative moral and fiscal values which lead them more often than not to vote Republican.

The perfect example of a Southern Conservative Democrat is Georgia Senator Zell Miller. It has been recently alleged that Senator Miller had actually switched parties, yet he has stated just the opposite in every media outlet of which he has participated. He says he will continue to remain a Democrat even though the party hes represented his entire life has forever left him and most other Southern Democrats behind. He openly admits that in the next presidential election he will vote for President Bush.

Why does he feel so ostracized by his own beloved party? He points to national leaders such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Pelosi who are all so liberal they have abandoned everybody in the party except those on the far left and they dont campaign for Democrats in the South because they would do more harm than good.

Look at the rhetoric being spewed by the early front-runner for the Democrat presidential nomination, "This democracy and the flag of the United States do not belong to Rush Limbaugh, and Jerry Falwell, and Dick Cheney," Howard Dean railed in a speech back in September, "This flag and this country belong to us and we want our country back." The people he mentioned are leading conservatives, so what he was pompously promoting is an agenda where flag waving, excessively patriotic conservatives shouldnt be included in the great melting pot of American society! Maybe the largest conglomeration of flag waving conservatives from both the Republican and Democrat parties live in the South!

In Senator Millers recently published book, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat, he wrote, "Today our national leaders look to the South and say, I see one third of the nation and it can go to Hell." Howard Dean captured that sentiment perfectly when he said he wanted to be "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. Then showing his complete and utter ignorance he said he was just referring to poor, white Southerners.

Liberal Southern Senator John Edwards lambasted Dean about his comment when Edwards claimed Dean was saying all Southerners were racist. The Confederate flag has been so incorporated with hate groups and perpetuated by the elite media to only represent racism that Southerners can no longer respect the historical significance of the Confederate flag to this region without being labeled a racist, even by a senator who supposedly represents the South!

Senator Miller said the Democrat party was the house he had always lived in and even though he sees it crumbling around him, hes lived there too long to leave it now. Many Southern Democrats feel the same way, but most have already changed their party affiliation. Polls taken during the last election showed only 26 percent of white Southern voters considered themselves Democrats and the numbers for Southern African-Americans has also started to slide.

In the Senate, Democrats have already destroyed the nomination of a well qualified Hispanic man for the judicial circuit and are in the process of attacking three Southern nominees, two men and one woman, and also an African-American woman from California. They are all exceptionally qualified and should be prime candidates for acceptance by Democrats, theres just one problem: They are all conservatives.

Dean, Edwards, and the rest of the naïve nine as Senator Miller calls them should look at what just happened in the most recent election where Republicans defeated the Democrat Governors of Kentucky and Mississippi. The American flag represents every United States citizen including flag waving conservatives from the South, and as those elections show theres already a party thats proud to accept fine conservative Democrats like Senator Miller from all walks of life and all races without impunitythe Republican party!

Lee P Butler