And as proof that Dean is a uniter not a divider, he introduced into evidence Exhibit A - Jesse L. Jackson Jr., who was born right up the road in Greenville. Jackson stepped up to the microphone as the game show host he was about to become, calling for all 17-year-olds in the audience who would turn 18 before the November election to "come on down." Yes, he really said that.
A young lady approached the lectern to enthusiastic applause. Next Jackson invited those who recently had married, divorced or moved to join her. By the end of the show, several dozen delighted would-be voters had gathered around the stage, whereupon Jackson's team helped them register to vote.
It is an interesting strategy for a Northern politician to invite Southern boys with Confederate flags on their trucks to join the party. It's interesting for a black politician to try to attract poor whites who, Jackson says, are as disenfranchised as blacks in the South.
But somehow their message doesn't ring quite true. Some Confederate rednecks may be poor, but they tend to be independent-minded and distrustful of government. And though blacks may recall the civil-rights struggle with reverence, they don't necessarily feel the "conservative" oppression their brethren insistently invoke to tempt their votes.
Which reminds me of a ceremony I attended here a few years ago to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday. When the young black man at the microphone asked if everybody was happy with their lives today, the all-black crowd shouted back: "Yeah!!!!" Whereupon the man shouted back: "Nooooo, you're not happy!"
Dean's truest comment may have been this: "It's time we had a new politics in America - a politics that refuses to pander to our lowest prejudices."
I couldn't agree more.