I see that the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger had picked up on the appearance of gubernatorial condidate Haley Barbour's picture on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which as I mentioned a few days ago is the unreconstructed successor group to the White Citizens Council:
Some of Republican gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour's campaign material features the state flag and its Confederate battle emblem, a symbol many black voters find offensive. [And not just black voters - Bruce]
Barbour wears a lapel pin with the U.S. and state flags and he is in a photograph on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a neo-Confederate group accused of racist views. Barbour says he doesn't know anything about the council. The picture was taken at a council-sponsored barbecue in July used to raise money for private academy school buses.
But Barbour says he wants to be the state's most successful Republican vote-getter among African Americans and has held closed-door strategy meetings with minorities. If elected, he says he will create a "colorblind" state government.
Missisissippi voters in a referendum in 2001 - California isn't the only state that causes itself trouble with these things - chose a state flag that prominently features the Confederate battle flag.
It's a bit odd that the article dwells on the state flag, though. Willingly associating himself with the White Citizens Council is something that is of much more interest in terms of his political perspective. Barbour is a former chairman of the national Republican Party. Hanging out with the White Citizens Council isn't exactly what most people think a "compassionate conservatism" would look like. It sounds like old-fashioned mean conservatism is more Barbour's thing.
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