The Race for the White House (geddit?)

Quote of the Day:

"Hillary Clinton ended Tuesday night with a big victory in West Virginia, showing once again that old, white, poor, uneducated people really don't like young, witty, urbane, well-educated black men. Quelle surprise."

--Chip Collis, How Obama WON Tuesday, in The Huffington Post (also known as Huffpost), the essential blog for anyone interested in American politics.

Another Huffpost quote today:

"7% of the voters in West Virginia voted for John Edwards. Faced with a black man and a white woman, these voters chose a white man who isn't running. And these are Democrats."

--RJ Eskow, Even The Racists Are Deserting Hillary. Eskow goes on to say, "The 'black candidate is unelectable' discussion is one Democrats usually hold in private. In public they're supposed to say :'If you won't vote for my opponent because of his race, I don't want your vote.' (Wink, wink.) Hillary broke that rule..." "To succeed in politics, you have to deal with ugly facts sometimes. Here's one ugly fact: Some voters won't vote for a black man. Here's another: Some of the same voters won't vote for a woman. It's foolish to think you can advance the rights of one group by inflaming prejudices against another. The best way to fight racism or sexism is to fight all prejudice."

The irony here is that Edwards, the "white man who isn't running", endorsed Obama, the black man who is, after the primary. Bye bye, Hillary.

Meanwhile, following up yesterday's post, two news snippets from the BBC:
"Nearly 15,000 people died and 25,000 are still trapped in the earthquake that hit China, official media say."
"The UN sharply increases to 2.5m its estimate of those severely affected by Cyclone Nargis in Burma."

Another BBC report on the dire conditions in Burma here. And a quote from another BBC report yesterday:

"In the former capital Rangoon, itself badly damaged by the cyclone, one man summed up the frustrations of a nation. 'When we had demonstrations last year the soldiers were everywhere,' he said. 'Where are they now?'"