According to Zev Chafets, the "race harpoon" that Rev. Al Sharpton tossed with such effectiveness at Howard Dean was no spontaneous target of opportunity, but a well-planned revenge for ignoring the Reverend on his home turf -- and the fun may have just begun:

A month ago, when Howard Dean came up to Harlem to get himself endorsed by Al Gore, Al Sharpton, the political proprietor of 125th Street, was not invited to the ceremony. It was clear even then that Dean would pay for disrespecting the Rev. On Sunday night in a nationally televised debate in Iowa, he got the bill. ... This time, he called Dean on it. How many blacks and Hispanics, he asked, did you appoint to your Cabinet in Vermont? The answer, of course, is none.

Dean was forced to admit this sin against diversity, and he did it with a moose-in-the-headlights expression. Not since 1988, when Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen informed his debate rival, Dan Quayle, that "you're no Jack Kennedy" has a candidate been so visibly confounded.

And worse was to come. When, later in the evening, Dean attempted to recover by citing the many endorsements he has received from black officials, Sharpton snapped, "The only people who need co-signers are the ones with bad credit."

Chafets says in this op-ed piece that the moment probably won't resonate in Iowa or New Hampshire, given their small minority populations; these states are among the four that have never elected a black or female to Congress, and Vermont is one of the other two. After that, the primaries go south and west, where Dean's Dan Quayle moment may get a lot of play, and the best part of this for Sharpton is that he won't likely be running the ads. He'll be able to remain above the fray, playing power broker for the African-American vote, while the other candidates rush to get this Iowa moment in front of voters all over the country. This revenge will keep coming, probably all the way to November, if Dean manages to hang onto a nomination that looked all but inevitable a month ago.

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Tracked on March 30, 2006 12:03 AM