more politics

I will get off the subject soon, but this has been an exciting primary. Edwards won by a lot more than the polls beforehand would have suggested. Looking at the results for the counties in this part of the state (where the African-American population is much lower than in the rest of the state), Kerry did somewhat better in the cities and Edwards in the country. Turnout was better than predicted but still low. In one 99% black urban precinct turnout was relatively high, 26 percent of the 1,636 registered voters, and the results were: Edwards, 33.2 percent; Kerry, 31 percent and Sharpton, 18.5 percent.

Somewhere I heard that people in South Carolina (assumably white people) were saying they voted for Edwards because he is "like us." I'm afraid that says it all. One of my favorite stories about diversity comes from a professor at MIT who is African-American. She said that she heard an older MIT professor bemoaning how much more diverse MIT has become. He said about teaching at MIT: "It is no fun anymore. They don't want to be me."