“In 1960, Time magazine reported on the musical tastes of the major-party candidates for president and vice president, as ascertained by Paul Hume, the music critic of The Washington Post…
“Richard Nixon confessed to Time that his sentimental favorites were 'Oklahoma!' (‘because it was the first show that he and Pat saw after moving to Washington’) and Mexican folk songs (‘because they reminded him of his honeymoon south of the border’), but he still complied with Hume's request for a classical choice, and cited Chaikovsky's [sic] 'Swan Lake.' Lyndon Johnson put himself down as ‘an indiscriminate admirer of Strauss waltzes.’ Henry Cabot Lodge, the true patrician in the company, named Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, K. 581 (he gave the Kochel number), alongside Handel's Messiah and (the noblesse oblige concession) recordings by the Dukes of Dixieland.”
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