i loved the part where Bush just happened to have the copy of the McCain attack, and then played the role that was in the other video on voter suppression, where the person who made a campaign contribution that is being decried, makes one to the complainer.

I mean heh folks, it's complicated, not to insinuate complicated to the point where it makes us all rubes, or the country is full of rubes, but I mean it's complicated you see, complicated.

That is bubba, you just met bubba..

I mean it's complicated.. rubes... and the attack that Bush produced, well unprepared.

I'm sure S. Carolina isn't full of hicks and rubes, but I'd wager the ratio is much higher there than elsewhere. Why else do political operatives pull their dirtiest race-baiting tricks there? Because they work with the locals. Bob Jones University is in SC, isn't it? And it was, after all, SC who fired the first shots of the Civil War.

Please... secede. We don't need you.

I hope this film comes out in time for the general election. We're going to need the reminding. Forewarned is forearmed.

Another twit named Tucker. Shouldn't he have a headlight in the middle of his forehead?

Well the folks in South Carolina may not be rubes but then I have to ask, why do they continue to act like rubes ?

"Proof depends on who you are. We're looking for a preponderance of evidence, and some people need more of a preponderance than other people." - John Kantner

Hey Y'all!

My name is Kyle and I grew up in a tiny town in South Carolina, in the upstate - or the piedmont, as us local folk like to call it. If you took the latin you'd knows that pied- means foot and -mont means mountain...that means foot of the mountain...foothills...get it, right? Not quite Appalachia, but within a holler!

Anyway (trying to be funny), I grew up in rural South Carolina and was born running away from it (now in Cambridge, MA). It is as poor and ignorant as any news crew knows to convey, yet so many opportunities are there for progressives to tap into. I'm saying this as an openly gay male who has seen first hand the horrors of southern ignorance. Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to reform there is the arrogance of northeastern liberals/intellectuals, with their elitist attitudes and their own ignorance toward the south.

I remember seeing a special, I think it was on CNN, in 2004, in which a North Carolinian supporting Edwards was highlighted. I remember him saying that most of the voters in the south were still old FDR, New Deal Democrats. I couldn't agree more. What happened was the Republicans stole from the Democrats the populist rhetoric and that is in large part a fault of the Democratic Party. After the 1970s, the Democrats were unable to really offer the ordinary voter anything to better his or her lives - nothing tangible anyway - and for whatever reason they couldn't communicate it. Therefore, the GOP and the Nixon southern strategy was launched in a populist framework - you know, we are a party of the people, we don't like black people too and we're crazy religious too...we hate abortion!! That strategy continues today. In the 1980s, it was black welfare queens. In 1994 it was welfare queens and queers daring to join the army. In 2004, it was gay marriage. Today, it is both gay people and illegal immigrants.

It goes above and beyond racism and ignorance, as well. It involves little things. John Kerry in 2004 went hunting during the campaign, I guess to show he was 'one of them'. He made the dreadful mistake of not carrying his own game out with him; he had the help carry it out for him. I don't know how much this was picked up in the national press, but it was devastating down south. They laughed at him! And not only down south, I'm sure, but in Ohio, rural Penn., Kentucky, etc etc...even Vermont.

So much of all of this is a reaction to the typical media narrative, which reflects a deep prejudice against southerners.

I lived in South Carolina until I was 23. Upon graduating from college, I moved to Cambridge, MA, the promised and bluest of lands. I have full citizenship here, protection in the workforce, etc etc. Its fantastic. However, the ignorance of well-intended northerners regarding the south is stunning. I wasn't in MA a full week before I was asked if I had ever eaten muskrat. In confused disgust, I replied, "Are you f*cking kidding me?" (Things like this, of course, are not helped by the likes of Mike Huckabee, Mr. I fried squirrels in a popcorn machine in college. Really? Gee, no wonder people ask me such ridiculous questions!) Shortly after that I shocked my (ivy-league educated) boss when I ordered an espresso. With a dumbfounded look on her face, she asked me, "you have espresso down south?" All of this I can laugh at. What's not so funny are the inbreeding jokes; this is absolutely unfounded and is only dehumanizing and no such prejudice amongst southerners against northerners exists. That is to their credit.

My only point is to beware, do not be so short-sighted and blinded by preconceived notions. Poor, ignorant southerners (and they do not account for even half of the population) are an endless source of amusement and the jokes never get old. The truth is, though, of all the people and things they loathe, the poor southerners...they hate rich people and powerful corporations most of all. These people are desperately looking for someone to fight for them and represent them...and it has only come in the form of Republican politicians gay bashing or race baiting. Its a matter have having an agenda and speaking the language, respectfully. That's the key to a true American revolution.

well said Kyle and a resoundin g lthank you from another Upstate SC citizen who still lives there, and you are spot on about the elite arrogance toward the south. A much better approach would be to embrace Deans 50 states approach and try to win over some of the rubes instead of ridiculing them. After all, over 40% of us vote democratic in these elections, so a swing of roughly 10% couild casue a shift from red to blue. But like in most matters involving changes, it is easier to criticize and deride than it is to take positive actions that involve one getting of their ass and doing something.

It's "an insult" and "unfair to suggest that a state like South Carolina is a bunch of rubes because of our past," he says.

No, not because of your past, because of your PRESENT.

Many people in the North mistake different dialect for ignorance. Many Southerners say,"I tawked to him." Many Northerners say, "I tocked to him." Neither is more correct than the other. Yet Southerners are criticized for their pronunciation while Northerners are not.

I had mixed feelings when I visited SC (Charleston, then Columbia) with my family in the summer of 2001.

I didn't much appreciate the two yahoos in the pickup truck with the Confederate Battle Flag decal cutting off my wife and flipping her off, but hey, she is a slow driver.

What offended me was the carriage-tour operator in Charleston dreassing up their elderly African American drivers in Confederate Grey. That and the glorification of the Good Old Days of the so-called rice plantations in the area, which were in fact primarily slave-breeding facilities supplying the big cotton industry in the Mississippi valley.

Charleston is cute enough but my kids couldn't get me away fast enough. The tourist industry there is based on glorifying slavery, and it still makes me spitting mad.

But when we visited the University (run down in the way that other southern public universities are) we were treated with kindness and hospitality by the people working there (all Democrats I suspect based on a surface appraisal).