When it comes to favorite songs, former Gov. Howard Dean has the flava.
At least that's what he wanted us all to believe last Tuesday when, in response to a question during a Democratic debate before a largely African-American audience at a historically African-American university in a predominately African-American big city, he chose a cut from hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean's 1997 "Carnival" album as his favorite song.
With that choice, the blue-blood scion of Wall Street who governed one of the whitest states in the country all but out-blacked the other eight Democratic contenders on the Morgan State University stage in Baltimore.
So, in much the same way he and the other candidates took pains a week earlier to speak Spanish before a largely Latino audience in New Mexico, the good doctor's choice of song could easily be dismissed as pandering to an electorate he has never had to woo before.
But, according to political scientists, campaign strategists and congressional Democrats, Dean didn't entirely come off that way.
Far from it, these observers say: Dean, despite never having to face a significant electorate of color, appeared last week to be one of the presidential contenders who has the ear of urban African Americans.
| Continue Darren M. Allen's Times-Argus article "Pander or candor?"
Also: Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive's transcription of "Jaspora"
posted in articles on September 13, 2003 9:08 PM | t (0)
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