When President Barack Obama made a rare visit to Tennessee on Tuesday, Democratic elected officials flocked to Chattanooga from around the state to hear him speak.
Among the politicos on hand were the mayors of three of the state’s four biggest cities. Andy Berke of Chattanooga was there, as anyone would expect; Madeline Rogero came in from Knoxville, and A C Wharton came all the way from Memphis.
But Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, who might run for statewide office someday and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., last summer, was absent from the political festivities this time around.
Dean spokeswoman Janel Lacy said the mayor simply had a scheduling conflict: a long-planned trip to New York for a continuing legal education class.
“The Mayor supports President Obama,” Lacy wrote in an email. “He was a delegate at the 2012 convention and has been to the White House twice for events since he’s been Mayor. He was disappointed that he couldn’t attend the event in Chattanooga. His absence had no political significance.”
Lacy said Dean traveled to New York – where he went to college at Columbia University – for the class “because he believes it’s the best Supreme Court Review seminar available. He has attended it in person or remotely for the past several years.”
Dean was the Davidson County public defender for nine years and the Metro law director for seven years before he started running for mayor in 2007. He has two years left in his second and final term.
