Presidential candidates are finding themselves being asked by the media in the wake of the South Carolina church massacre last week about whether the Confederate flag should be flown on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse, as it is now. The alleged killer, Dylann Roof, was motivated by racial hatred, and is seen in photos that have been found online holding and posing with the Confederate War flag of Northern Virginia, sometimes while also holding a gun, and burning the American flag.

Most of the candidates are trying to stay out of it, since some members of the Democratic and GOP base from the South see the flag as an issue of Southern pride, so several candidates are saying it's an issue that should be left for the state to decide. Democrats such as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Martin O’Malley think the flag is inappropriate, raising eyebrows of some traditional democrats in Maryland and the South. Most Republicans have indicated that it is a state's rights issue, while suggesting that they would not be sorry to see it taken down in South Carolina. But then Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, "Everyone's being baited with this question as if somehow that has anything to do whatsoever with running for president. My position is it most certainly does not." Over on ABC's This Week, former Senator Rick Santorum said, "My opinion is that we should let the people of South Carolina go through the process of making this decision." Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, however, noted that, "In Florida we acted, moving the flag from the state grounds to a museum where it belonged."

The positions of some of the other candidates:

 of South Carolina, the only politician from the state in the race, defended the flag as "part of who we are."

Scott Walker ducked, saying policy issues should wait until after the victims' funerals.

Marco Rubio said it should be up to South Carolina to decide.

Carly Fiorina called the flag a "symbol of racial hatred," but said her opinion isn't what's relevant.

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012 who isn't running for anything this time around, has long been opposed to the Confederate flag, and is calling for the flag to be taken down! Romney said it is a symbol of racial hatred and remove the flag now to honor the Charleston victims.

Today's question: What do you think of when you see the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia, more commonly referred to as the Confederate Flag?

More From WBSM-AM/AM 1420