A friend of mine who lives in San Juan just sent me his excellent observations about the presidential primary contest happening right now in Puerto Rico. As most of the discussion about the election in PR is based mostly on speculation, a single, weeks old poll and a monolithic conception of the 'Latino' vote I thought my friends account was extremely cogent. With his kind permission I have posted the words of D.B. below the fold. I suspect he may post some comments.

While doing voter registration in West Philadelphia, a largely African American community 2 days ago I was struck by the sense of fatalism by a small but significant number of Black Obama supporters I spoke with on the street. Being an African-American raised in Chicago I recognized this as the result of generations of social disenfranchisement. To what extent is the specific history of the African-American community in Philadelphia making an impact on their attitudes towards the campaign and how much will this affect voter turnout in Philadelphia which is absolutely essential for Obama not to loose Pennsylvania in a blowout loss to Hillary Clinton next month?

Hillary Clinton is doing a WILLIE HORTON LITE on Barak Obama.  Let’s call it what is. The poster who called it RACISM named the pink elephant in the room. If the bigot pandering crap coming from Hillary Clinton's campaign came from a Republican candidate I am sure the racism of these smears would not even be up for discussion.

Today it was announced by the media that ancestors on the White side of Barak Obama's family owned slaves. I find this to be an interesting coincidence that the media chose the very same day that Obama is to speak at a major civil rights commemoration in front of a predominately African American audience to make this news. I also find it equally curious that this happened within a few days of the "surprise" public discovery that Al Sharpton's ancestors were owned by the ancestors of arch-segregationist Strom Thurmmond. While it is somewhat strange that there is an ancestral connection between Sharpton and Thurmond what is even stranger is the publicly exaggerated kabuki display of disgust, revulsion and anger Sharpton has been expressing about the vileness of the institution of slavery as he has been making the rounds on various talk shows. One would get the impression watching Sharpton recount the awfulness of life as a slave these past few days that he only just realized these degradations with the Thurmond discovery.(Read about Sharptons secret relationship with Republican funding here) I find it hard to believe that all these events were not orchestrated in another attempt to alienate Obama from Black voters.  

T

This editorial in today's Guardian is a futuristic telling of a hawkish Hillary Clinton presidency trying to make good on her "centrist" election persona in a post W. Bush world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/...