EDISON, N.J. — As a boy, he dreamt of being an astronaut — and with the aerospace engineering degree he later earned from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), fantasy could very well have become reality. At one point, he even considered the ministry. But in the end, the son of immigrant dry-cleaners opted to follow in the footsteps of a basketball legend.

Jun Choi, a former aide to New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, is gearing up to win the mayoral seat of Edison, a large New Jersey township with a population of about 98,000. Choi won the June 7 primary as the Democratic nominee, ousting three-term incumbent George Spadoro. If Choi wins in the general election in this largely Democratic community come November, the 34-year-old will be one of the youngest mayors in the country.

His candidacy garnered national attention when, on April 25, Craig Carton and Ray Rossi, two afternoon radio hosts known as the Jersey Guys, used Choi’s mayoral run as the launching point into a diatribe against “damn Orientals and Indians.”

“Would you really vote for someone named Jun Choi,” Carton said, affecting a squeaky, high-pitched accent, à la Fu Manchu, on the candidate’s name. The shock jock bemoaned the fact that politicians pandering to “fringe groups” don’t “give a damn about the average blue-collar white guy any more.”

Choi’s mother, Joung Choi, looks on and his supporters cheer as Choi prepares to speak.

“I don’t care if the Chinese population in Edison has quadrupled in the last year,” Carton said, clumping the Korean American candidate into a generic pool of Asians. “Chinese should never dictate the outcome of an election. Americans should.”

The invective came on the heels of the fury sparked by the New York radio station Hot 97’s infamous tsunami song, a racist mockery of the Southeast Asian tragedy that killed thousands in December.

More than 100 Asian American and civic organizations protested the incendiary remarks and called on the radio station to fire Carton and Rossi. The New Jersey 101.5 FM radio station manager initially defended the duo, but after several major companies, including Hyundai Motor America, Cingular Wireless and Bank of America, pulled their ads, the station conceded that the comments were inappropriate.

During a May meeting with Asian American activists, the station and its parent company, Millennium Radio Group, agreed to implement racial sensitivity training for its staff and promote on-air Asian American events taking place within New Jersey. The station also helped to promote a memorial dedication to Min Soo Choi, a posthumously naturalized Korean American soldier killed in Iraq.

Some of Choi’s young campaign volunteers celebrate after his primary victory.

Choi made a live guest appearance in June and the Jersey Guys offered an on-air apology. “Man to man, I’m sorry,” Carton said.

Choi accepted the apology, but chastened: “You guys crossed the line by saying that these groups were un-American. That was what I was deeply offended by. The fact that you made fun of my name, the fact that you picked on me, no problem with that.”