The latest poll

MANIFESTO

In The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman almost apologetically states that one of the book's tenets has to do with race and—I would add—racism as a determinant of the US's overall socioeconomic equality.

His thesis is being borne out by the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll wherein we find that

Senator Barack Obama’s aura of inevitability in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination has diminished after his loss in the Pennsylvania primary and amid the furor over his former pastor.

As long as Obama was a "safe" Negro, he was ok with voters. Now that he's suffering from associative guilt from his affiliation with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, an uppity Negro if ever there was one, his approval rating is sliding precipitously. Perhaps more strikingly, his disapproval rating, according to the same poll, has soared to 34% from 24%—a 42% jump—in just a few weeks. (As it turns out, all three of the major candidates are seeing their disapproval ratings rising, which just gives credence to the idea that a protracted primary season does no one any good.)

UPDATE — Clearly, Obama would like to put a lid on this.