Last of the Lester Maddox National Democrats Going Out with Smears

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean "knows about as much about the South as a hog knows about Sunday," Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia said on Sunday's "Meet the Press" -- part of his talk-show tour to publicize his new book.

Miller was reacting to a statement made the day before by Dean, the former governor of Vermont, that he wanted to appeal to Southerners with Confederate battle emblems on their pickup trucks.

The only way we're going to beat George Bush is if Southern white working families and African-American working families come together under the Democratic tent, as they did under FDR," Dean said in a statement Saturday.

Zell Miller is also in the WSJ today "George Bush vs. the Naive Nine."

Up until 1964 the Democratic party in the South was the party of racism, a legacy of the Southern occupation under Republicans after the Civil War. In the 60's, Democrats became the party of civil rights and there has been a steady growth of Republicans in the South. Zell Miller got his start in politics working for Lester Maddox.

"Lester Maddox became a symbol of segregation and defiance of federal authority after he refused to seat black customers at his restaurant right after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964," Kuhn says.

When black customers tried to enter his popular Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, a gun-toting Maddox fended them off with the help of friends wielding pick handles. A widely published photo of the incident made Maddox a hero to segregationists. He used this publicity to become governor of Georgia.

Zell Miller has announced this is his last term as Senator. Good riddance.