I am so far, thank God, wrong about Al Sharpton. His race card campaign seems to be going nowhere. Does this mean that many, if not most, Afro-Americans are getting fed up with his nonsense? One can hope that this is indeed the case. This might, knock on wood, indicate that race relations in the United States are dramatically improving.

I really wish the press would focus less on the winner of the popular vote and more on the number of delegates awarded. Sure, Clark "won" the popular vote in OK, but if one looks at the percentages, with 99% of the precincts reporting, he and Edwards both have 30% and Kerry has 27%, meaning that Clark will only get about 14 of OK's 40 delegates tied to the primary process. If one looks at total delegate count, Kerry and Edwards are surging (although Edwards is still behind Dean, but that will change soon), but Clark is stalled. Nevertheless, with this "victory" awarded to him by the press, Clark will stay in the race far longer than he should.

Right on, Tom.

David, if it is the case that blacks are not voting for Sharpton, it may simply be a matter of priorities. Perhaps those that vote Democrat see losing Bush as a bigger issue than a perceived loss of rights that Sharpton may or may not remedy.

I'd agree that race relations have improved greatly, but Al Sharpton's popularity in the primaries isn't an effective gauge of that. Al Sharpton's popularity outside of the elections would be a good one.

It's no surprise that Al Sharpton is not winning the African-American vote, and I would not read too much into that regarding black voting patterns in general. Al Sharpton is no Jessie Jackson. While Jackson was working all his life to better the lives of African-Americans around the country (including working with MLK), Al Sharpton was being a shifty guy doing some pretty shifty stuff with some shifty characters (see Twana Brawley among other things). Most African-Americans have no positive point of reference with Sharpton as they do with Jackson. Of course in the past 10 years Sharpton has metamorphasized into a legitimate black leader with some of his admirable fights in New York City. But this change is rather recent and has not had much effect outside of his constituency in NYC. This race is Sharpton's attempt to broaden his base outside of NYC, and he will probably be somewhat succesful, but because of his past he will never be fully trusted and respected like Jackson.

I listened to your show on Tuesday. It was very good, indeed.