Dean, on Defensive, Says He Regrets Confederate Remark

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, flogged by his opponents for three days for alleged insensitivity, expressed remorse Wednesday for appealing to Southerners who display the Confederate flag and sought to move his campaign back to less-inflammatory ground.

Reversing earlier claims that he had no reason to apologize, Dean conceded in a speech in New York City that, in his attempt to reach out to poor whites in the South, he “started this discussion in a clumsy way.”

“I regret the pain that I may have caused either to African American or Southern white voters in the beginning of this discussion,” the candidate said. “But we need to have this discussion in an honest, open way.”

Dean had endured sharp attacks by his opponents and held his ground since the publication Saturday of a story in the Des Moines Register about his stance on gun control. He told the newspaper: “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. We can’t beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats.”

But on Wednesday morning, Dean reversed course after the criticism erupted in full force before a national audience on the previous night and the flag issue threatened to stem his campaign’s momentum.

Strategists for the Democratic presidential front-runner said Wednesday they hoped their candidate’s statement would defuse attempts by his rivals to throw the candidate on the defensive. Indeed, by day’s end, some fellow Democrats were starting to make peace with Dean on the issue.

At a candidate debate in Manchester, N.H., Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who had lambasted Dean on Tuesday for stereotyping Southerners, commended him for offering contrition on Wednesday.

“Gov. Dean apologized today, which I think is a very good thing,” Edwards said a few minutes into the forum. “He should be applauded for doing that. I think it was the right thing for him to do.”

Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, who earlier in the day criticized Dean for not fully apologizing, said after the forum that he accepted the expression of regret. “I gather that tonight the governor ... did change his mind again and call it an apology, and so whenever somebody apologizes, my inclination is to accept their apology and move on,” Kerry said.

Although apologetic, Dean told reporters that he felt his attempt to make a point about divisions within the Democratic Party was misinterpreted.

“I was disappointed by the attacks because I think there has been a certain amount of attempts of distorting what I originally said,” Dean said in Manchester. “But that’s politics. People are going to do what they have to do to push aside the folks that are ahead of them.”

Independent analysts said they did not expect the flag episode to derail Dean, who has outpaced his opponents in fund-raising and most national polls. But they called the appeal to white Southerners a ham-handed attempt to address a long-standing divide among Southern Democrats -- between a well-educated, liberal intelligentsia and blue-collar voters, who are more conservative on social issues. The analysts said Dean still had fences to mend with those “lunch bucket” voters.

Wednesday offered a mix of fortunes for Dean. Word came that several of the other candidates’ campaigns had been informed that Dean had secured the endorsement of the Service Employees International Union. The labor organization is one of the nation’s largest, with 1.6 million members -- a racially diverse group of janitors, clerks and others who could help dispel charges that Dean appeals mostly to well-to-do whites.

But Dean also had to fend off criticism on another front -- for flirting with the possibility of becoming the first Democratic candidate ever to turn away public campaign money. That move would allow him to breach the primary season’s $45-million spending cap.

The flag comment had become just the latest avenue for attacking Dean, who in recent weeks has been challenged by the eight other Democratic candidates on issues ranging from his onetime call for reductions in Medicare to his disagreement with some gun control measures.

Dean, a Yale-educated physician, has styled his rejection of Democratic orthodoxy as one of his strengths, reaching out to working-class Democrats and independents. Earlier this year, he told several audiences that he would appeal to “white folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back.”

Dean dropped that line from speeches in the spring because of concerns it might offend, according to one of his advisors. “He said ‘Some people may not like it and I may be getting some negative feedback on it,’ ” said the advisor, who asked not to be named.

But in an interview with the Des Moines Register last week that centered on gun control, Dean was asked whether he stood by those earlier remarks. Dean repeated the phrase.

The flag comment drew little attention when Dean was stuck in the middle of the large field. But it unleashed a fusillade of criticism from his opponents this week, particularly at a debate Tuesday night in Boston.

When Sekou Diyday, a 25-year-old African American man, rose from the audience at the CNN-MTV Rock the Vote forum to say he was “extremely offended” by Dean’s comment, Dean offered no apology. He told Diyday he had merely meant to suggest that Democrats must reach out to all voters to make progress on social issues.

Dean stiffened as first the Rev. Al Sharpton, then North Carolina’s Edwards and, finally, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois took turns accusing him of insensitivity.

Some Democratic leaders said the contenders would be wise to move beyond the flag debate as quickly as possible, particularly after the results of Tuesday’s election, in which the party lost two Southern governorships to Republicans.

“Last night’s debate was a complete throwback to another era -- the GOP wins when we are bogged down on race,” said Donna Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

The flag comment is almost certain to be used against Dean in the campaign’s first test in the South, the South Carolina primary of Feb. 3, said Earl Black, a professor of political science at Rice University. Black predicted that Sharpton will try to hurt Dean among blacks.

“His remark doesn’t make any more sense than going to Idaho and saying, ‘We’ve got to get the skinheads into the Democratic Party,’ ” said Dick Harpootlian, recently retired chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

The Dean faithful have remained unfazed when their man has been attacked in the past. In fact, money and volunteers poured into his campaign after he made what most pundits said was a weak showing on “Meet the Press” in the summer.

“The question is whether or not it affects the Dean people,” an advisor to a fellow Democratic candidate said of the flag flap. “If they react the way they have to other things Dean has done ... you have to ask yourself what the hell is going to affect these people.”

On the issue of campaign finances, campaign analysts have predicted for weeks that Dean would opt out of the public financing system and the spending cap in anticipation of a showdown with President Bush, who is not abiding by the limits and who hopes to spend $200 million on his reelection bid.

Dean announced Tuesday that he will put the question of whether to stay under the spending cap to his supporters via an Internet survey. His e-mail to more than 500,000 supporters made a strong argument for breaching the spending cap.

Joan Claybrook, president of the campaign reform group Public Citizen, said that any Democrat could eventually be at a tremendous disadvantage when faced with Bush’s campaign war chest. But she urged Dean to abide by the spending cap to “ensure a relatively equal playing field among the Democrats” during the primaries.

Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt’s campaign has asked the Federal Election Commission for an opinion on whether a candidate can legally escape the spending requirements after signing an agreement to stay in.

Times staff writer Matea Gold contributed to this report.