The pandering by George W. Bush and John McCain to Republican reactionaries who want to keep the Confederate battle flag atop South Carolina’s Statehouse is especially disheartening for those of us who hope for the emergence of more-creditable Republican alternatives to the Democratic politics of racial grievance, preference, and "Sharptonism."

Republicans Bush and McCain, both of whom seem sincere in calling for racial inclusion and fairness, have now made it harder for themselves to convince skeptical voters that they will practice what they preach and will not be captives of the Republican hard Right or its racist fringe.

"Your Heritage Is My Slavery," asserted the anti-flag signs held aloft by the throng of some 50,000 demonstrators outside the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C., on Jan. 17. The message was apt. And the demonstration was an appropriate way to mark the holiday on which most of the nation (although not South Carolina) honors the birthday of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Southerners have every right to take pride in ancestors who fought bravely for what many saw as the cause of securing their states’ independence from Northern domination. But only those who are willfully blind-or just plain racist-can fail to see why the Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery and oppression to almost all black Americans.

To fly that flag atop a public building that is supposed to belong to all of the people is a grievous insult to millions of citizens.

The insult is aggravated by the fact that this particular Confederate flag-the one on South Carolina’s Statehouse-is not just some 19th-century relic. It was put up in 1962 as a gesture of segregationist defiance of the movement to end state-imposed racial discrimination against the descendants of the slaves. Former Republican Gov. David M. Beasley and the business community have urged that it be taken down, only to be blocked by legislators from conservative white districts.

It was against this background that Bush, when pressed for his personal opinion on the flag issue during a Jan. 7 debate in Columbia, said: "I don’t believe it’s the role of someone from outside South Carolina and someone running for President to come into this state and tell the people of South Carolina what to do with their business when it comes to the flag."

The Texas Governor has given similarly evasive answers ever since, while adding that he would not fly the Confederate flag over the Texas State Capitol "because of the symbolism."

Bush was also slow to unambiguously condemn an ugly reference to the NAACP-which has organized a boycott of South Carolina over the flag issue-by Arthur Ravenel, a Republican state senator (and former U.S. congressman) from the Charleston area. At a Jan. 8 pro-flag rally, Ravenel referred to the NAACP as the "National Association for Retarded People." He compounded the insult on Jan. 10 by apologizing-to "retarded folks…for equating them with the NAACP."

Bush’s initial (Jan. 12) response to requests for comment was to call Ravenel’s statements "unfortunate." But he declined to denounce them with any force or to call for a real apology until a Jan. 15 debate, when Bush agreed-after being pressed by fellow candidate Alan Keyes-that Republicans should "repudiate" such slurs.

Too little, too late.

Bush is far from persuasive in suggesting that it would be inappropriate for him to express an opinion on the flying of the Confederate flag over the South Carolina Statehouse because it is a "local issue." He has not hesitated to address other symbolically important state issues, ranging from gay marriage to education reform.

McCain seemed more forthright when (on Jan. 9) he called the Confederate flag an "offensive…symbol of racism and slavery." But in the succeeding three days, he waffled his way to a virtual retraction: "Some view it as a symbol of slavery. Others view it as a symbol of heritage. Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage." This from one who usually comes across as a man of principle and straight talk.

(The Arizona Senator noted that some of his ancestors had fought "honorably" for the Confederacy. So did one of mine.)

The reason for all this ducking and dodging is clear enough. The Feb. 19 South Carolina primary could well make or break McCain’s underdog challenge to Bush. Both men are aware that the Republican primary electorate includes many conservatives with reactionary views, and some outright racists, who thrill to the symbolism of the Confederate flag. And both men are desperate to win.

Too desperate. While taking on the flag and its devotees would be a big political risk, it would be the right thing to do. By risking the South Carolina primary, Bush or McCain, or both, could exhibit the political courage that most voters around the country long to see. So far, both men have conspicuously failed this test.

Meanwhile, far less conspicuously, Democratic candidates have been pandering to their own party’s hard Left and its race-baiting fringe. First lady (and would-be U.S. Sen.) Hillary Rodham Clinton celebrated the Jan. 17 King holiday in New York City by paying obeisance to the Rev. Al Sharpton, whom she joined at a rally at his Harlem headquarters. While there, she found it necessary to disassociate herself (tepidly) from some offensive comments about Jews that a Sharpton ally had made in introducing him before she had entered the room.

On the same day, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, while suggesting that perhaps 25-year-old baseball pitcher John Rocker should be fired for his bigoted remarks in a magazine interview, expressed a very different view of Sharpton’s long history of bigoted remarks, demagogic lies, and alliances with Jew-bashing extremists: "I think that he’s got to be given respect, and people have to be allowed to grow," Bradley said. Like Clinton, Bradley has dramatized his own respect for Sharpton-who has become one of New York’s most potent Democrats-by publicly visiting his headquarters.

Meanwhile, Vice President Al Gore’s campaign has been busy "playing the polarizing race card," in the words of retired Gen. Colin Powell, who objected to Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile’s assertion that "Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. …They’d rather take pictures with black children than feed them."

The sad fact is that the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties alike sometimes seem more interested in appeasing their militant fringes on racial issues than in pursuing Dr. King’s dream of an America in which people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by "the content of their character."

Republicans are understandably repelled by the Democrats’ habit of blaming white people for all the problems of black America and by their prescription of a pervasive regime of racial preferences as the all-purpose cure. And some Republicans have advanced plausible alternative proposals for expanding the opportunities of disadvantaged people, such as tuition vouchers to help poor children escape failed public schools and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s plan to admit the top 20 percent of graduates from every high school (including inner-city schools) to the state university system.

But if they want to sell such ideas, Republicans-seen by many as the party not of Abraham Lincoln but of Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and others who were on the wrong side of the civil rights revolution-must show black voters and whites who care about racial fairness that they can be trusted. They must "reach out," as Bush himself has said, to overcome the widespread assumption that "Republicans don’t care about African Americans or the downtrodden."

One way to reach out would be to say what conservative leader William Bennett said on Jan. 17 on CNN’s Inside Politics: "Although there were great individuals who fought for the Confederacy, and their individual memory should be honored, what the flag stood for was slavery and separation from the Union. And that, I think, is not something to be flown or to be hailed or to be saluted."

Or what Glenn C. Loury, a critic of the undue use of racial preferences who is director of the Institute on Race and Social Division at Boston University, said in a Jan. 17 op-ed in The New York Times: "A Confederate battle flag displayed in someone’s home may reflect something about culture and heritage, but flying above a state’s capitol, it represents ideas about our public life that have long been discredited. …Anyone who would be president of the United States should be willing to affirm these truths."

By refusing to affirm these truths, Bush and McCain may improve their chances of winning the Republican nomination. But whoever wins may find himself running against Gore or Bradley with a Confederate flag hanging around his neck.