Questionnaire for the 2012 Presidential Candidates

The Committee Against Neo-Confederacy will be sending out a questionnaire on neo-Confederacy to the 2012 Presidential candidates. Of course there will be a question about the Arlington Confederate Monument and wreath sending, but there will be eleven other questions for a total of twelve questions.

The cover letter has been written and the questions have been defined. We started with 20 or so and whittled them down to twelve questions. These questions may not cover every issue, but I think that answers to the questionnaire will give a person a fairly good picture as to where the candidate stands.

What isn't complete is the briefing and background information papers which will go to journalists. We are still working on these papers. We will want to have a brief paper on what neo-Confederacy is, I don't expect reporters to want to read a book. We need to write up a back ground for each question. We are also going to have a paper with background information on the presidents and the Confederacy and neo-Confederacy from Franklin D. Roosevelt to the present. I have accumulated materials over the years and have some interesting materials.

The questionnaire is about where America is heading and about what direction the presidential candidate would take America if elected. It isn't about debating the 19th century or the president's interpretations or understanding of 19th century history. It is about who we are and where we are going which is something everyone is interested in.

So we have the questions in two sections, one section concerns policy, and the other concerns national identity, what type of nation we think we are. Once a nation has an idea of who they think they are and what type of nation they should be, politics, policy, actions are largely derivitive actions.

I think we have fairly good chances of getting a response to our questionnaire. There are a great many candidates for the presidency on the Republican side and I think one or two would be interested in answering our questionnaire, if only to differentiate themselves from the pack. Republican candidates for South Carolina governor met with a neo-Confederate front group to be video taped as to their views on the Confederacy among other topics. The South Carolina presidential primary is a critical gate in the primary season for presidential candidate and after New Hampshire, an opportunity for a candidate to gain the lead. George W. Bush derailed John McCain's presidential aspirations in 2000 by having a pro-Confederate flag front group attack McCain. Huckabee when campaigning there in the 2008 presidential primary wanted to make sure that voters knew that he supported the Confederate flag. I suspect that neo-Confederate groups are already planning a questionnaire or video interviews to screen the presidential candidates as they did the candidates for governor of South Carolina.

On the Democratic side, there well may be some other candidates besides President Obama in the next primary cycle and who might want to answer the questionnaire.

We are working on all the papers to have them ready by Nov. 2010. The campaign for the presidency I think really starts in January 2011. The mid-term elections will be over, the holidays will be over, and the new congress in session.

We will post the questionnaire later.