I can’t recall the last time Northern rhetoric piqued Dixie sensitivities, but Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s remarks over the weekend certainly flustered North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Dean expanded his diversity umbrella in an effort to win more Southern voters, telling the Des Moines Register, “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.”

His opponents for the nomination seized the chance to take the acerbic liberal — leading the Democratic pack in fundraising and in many polls — down a few pegs.

“I don’t want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” said Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri. “I will win the Democratic nomination because I will be the candidate for guys with American flags in their pickup trucks.”

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry accused Dean of pandering to the National Rifle Association, and said “I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.”

But perhaps the most indignant, yet goofiest, retort came from the Tar Heel state’s presidential entry.

“Some of the greatest civil rights leaders, white and black, have come from the South,” said Edwards. “To assume that Southerners who drive trucks would embrace this symbol is offensive.”

Huh? Dean’s comments struck two of Edwards’s favorite campaign chords — his Southern-ness and race relations — but his response sounded more confused than anything he said when Tim Russert flummoxed him on “Meet the Press.”

Perhaps Edwards’s desperation is getting the best of him. His well-financed campaign languishes in single digits in opinion polls. Last week in South Carolina, an early primary strategy basket where he is placing almost all his eggs to win the nomination, Edwards lost his lead in the polls to Wesley Clark.

But clearly, as a Southerner, he wants to establish his race credentials. Although he skipped 90 percent of votes in September, the U.S. Senate has become one of Edwards’s campaign stops every time Judge Charles Pickering’s nomination comes up for a vote. He never fails to remind colleagues that Pickering, despite a solid civil rights record in his home state of Mississippi, asked the Justice Department to investigate whether a lesser sentence applied to a man convicted of cross burning.

So when Dean blundered, Edwards had a chance to further bolster that image. But given his nonsensical utterance, it appears that a reporter may have caught him by surprise.

Either that, or he and his staff rushed their discussions to come up with a response:

Edwards: Alright, Dean’s a buffoon. Give me some ideas, quick!

His spokeswoman: How about, “While I don’t have a Confederate flag, I do own a pickup and on behalf of all my fellow Southerners, I resent that remark.”

Edwards: Don’t you think that makes me sound hypersensitive?

Campaign chairman: I know! “Governor Dean, I’ve known a lot of guys with pickup trucks, and believe me you’re no Confederate.” No wait…I mean, “Governor Dean, I’m a Southerner, and I know those Confederate guys, and believe me you’re no pickup for them!” Aw, that won’t work either. We need a zinger like Lloyd Bentson’s in 1988!

Edwards: We don’t want to be copycats…

Spokewoman: “Gov. Dean, I’ve known a lot of Confederates like Judge Charles Pickering who sought a reduced sentence for a cross burner, so if you want to be their candidate, go right ahead!”

Edwards: Well, we might still need Mississippi…

Chairman: “You know, governor, many truck drivers from the South supported the civil rights movement, so to paint them as Confederates is a vicious stereotype.”

Edwards: Naw, too spiteful – too much like Dean himself.

Spokeswoman: Would it be too politically incorrect to say, “We’ll trade the redneck truck driver vote from the South to Governor Dean in exchange for Vermont’s sap-sucking socialist vote?”

Edwards: I gotta go…Associated Press needs to talk to me now.

Unable to arrive at a consensus, Edwards apparently pasted together his statement in haste, and well, you saw what he blurted out. He’d better hope he’s a little more nimble when he returns to “Meet the Press” this weekend.

Paul Chesser is associate editor Carolina Journal, a publication of the John Locke Foundation. He can be contacted at [email protected].