Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean says Trent Lott shouldn’t be elected Senate majority leader. Dean says he believes Lott’s comments at a birthday party for retiring Senator Strom Thurmond were outrageous and appear to endorse the segregationist policies of more than 50 years ago.
Lott said last week that his home state of Mississippi was right to vote for Thurmond for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948. Thurmond ran then on a segregationist, states-rights platform. Lott has been engulfed in controversy since he made his comments. Dean says if Lott becomes majority leader again it would make it difficult for Republicans to seek the support of black voters.