There are, to steal John Edwards’ shopworn phrase, indeed “two Americas,” and the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright and presidential contender Barack Obama has brought that to the surface, most prominently in the latter’s speech Tuesday in which he discussed the distinction between the African-American experience and the experiences of whites in this country. I haven’t had time to read all the commentary the speech has generated, and probably won’t, but I will at least commend my OTB co-blogger James Joyner’s take as well as that of Marvin King.

The existence of this disconnect is, of course, nothing new in American politics—indeed, perhaps the oddest feature of modern American political history is that for a few years enough of the gap between the two Americas was bridged to bring the Civil Rights Movement to fruition and partial accomplishment of its goals. But as we all know, even that bridge was a fleeting one; in a small bit of serendipity, the Memphis Commercial Appeal revisited a point by which that bridge was largely washed away, the 1968 sanitation worker’s strike.

The paper’s (somewhat unsatisfactory, largely for its failure to recognize that even if white leaders in Memphis—including the CA editorial board—had seen it as a form of civil rights protest, rather than a labor action, they still would have seen it as a threat to public order) effort to address its own coverage of that strike here and here addresses the fundamental disconnect: most blacks saw the Civil Rights Movement as a means to an end, getting redress for the economic and social injustice of slavery and subordination, while whites primarily saw it (in the south) in terms of a challenge to the established political order or (outside the south) primarily focused on securing equal rights in a more classically liberal sense, such as equal standing before the law and the right to participate in the electoral process. As such, the post-Voting Rights Act movement found itself caught between a black community that didn’t think the movement had achieved enough and a white community that thought the movement had either achieved plenty—or, once the issues moved beyond abstract principles to more concrete implementation, such as integration of schools in redlining-induced de facto segregated communities across the nation, too much.

The unenviable challenge, I think, that Obama (and to a large extent, the Democratic Party he represents) faces is the need to move the debate beyond race—in other words, to diminish the importance of white-black differences—while simultaneously addressing the deep-seated, and in my mind broadly justified, demands of the black community for economic empowerment. Without diminishing the perceived racial differences—and, by extension, convincing working-class whites in the traditional Democratic coalition that economic empowerment is not a wealth transfer from them to blacks, a case that may be harder to make given that virtually any such empowerment (if in the form of government intervention) would necessitate increased federal taxation—the left has no hope of building a viable coalition that can do more than fiddle at the margins.

Update: As Megan McArdle indicates, that challenge won’t be a pretty one either, at least for those of us who don’t think the Smoot-Hawley Act was one of the high points of the Hoover administration’s response to the Great Depression:

And then he has to go and make possibly the stupidest remark in this entire campaign—or at least, Best in Class (you can't really expect him to outdo a television anchor.) "This time we need to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you will take your job, it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit."

This is jaw-droppingly, head-shakingly, soul-cringingly, "Oh my God, maw, I think my eardrum just exploded" stupid.

"Don't be afraid of the people who don't look like you—be afraid of the people who don't look like you, and have the nerve to live somewhere else." They'll sneak over the border at night, steal your job, and sell it to some wetback hooker in Juarez.

I understand the political logic that forces Barack Obama to spend a fair amount of time hating on trade. But I sort of feel--call me a starry-eyed idealist though you will--that a speech urging Americans not to hate and fear people who are different from them, should perhaps itself forgo urging Americans to hate and fear people who are different from them. You know, to set a good example for the children.

Megan might be reading in a bit more xenophobia than Obama intended, but it’s a very short bus ride these days from being a Democratic presidential contender to a Dobbsian/Paulian/Tancredian foaming-at-the-mouth zero-summer-slash-Minuteman-wannabe.

Via the rumor blog, I discovered The Grad Cafe, a website aimed at potential grad students in a variety of fields. For the potential political scientists in the audience, I found this post by “realist” and a reply by “eve2008” to be particularly of interest and largely congruent with my battle-tested views on the subject. (Reality is harsh. Deal with it.)

In terms of graduate admissions, I particularly would emphasize the importance of strong training in research methods at the undergraduate level—if your BA program doesn’t require a rigorous methods course (and many top departments don’t), take it anyway or if unavailable go to another department and take their equivalent course (e.g. econometrics, stats for psych/sociology/marketing). I’d also argue that some experience writing a real research paper either in a course or as a capstone/honors thesis is important. Even with weak GREs and a less-than-stellar GPA, those two would be enough to get into an MA program where you can prove yourself “worthy” of admission to get a placeable PhD.

For the morbidly curious, I believe the tenure-track placement record for my PhD program in the last seven years or so is 2 state school BA/MA/MPA programs (both for fall 2008, one of which is me), 2 state school BA programs (fall 01 and fall 04?), and 1 private BA program (fall 06). Our MA graduate who went on to another PhD program placed in a PhD program (fall 07). Not bad for a low-ranked program, overall.

Tyler Cowen notes a recently-changed German law (previously shared over on the right and also noted by James Joyner) that made it illegal for anyone with a doctorate from a non-E.U. university to call themselves a doctor.

As someone who’s discussed academic titles excessively in the past, I found this turn of events somewhat interesting, but I found this part of the original WaPo piece more noteworthy:

Under a little-known Nazi-era law, only people who earn PhDs or medical degrees in Germany are allowed to use “Dr.” as a courtesy title.

The law was modified in 2001 to extend the privilege to degree-holders from any country in the European Union. But docs from the United States and anywhere else outside Europe are still forbidden to use the honorific. Violators can face a year behind bars. ...

The German doctor rule has been in effect since the 1930s, but it has been only sporadically enforced in recent years.

That changed last fall, when an anonymous tipster filed a complaint with federal prosecutors against seven Americans at the prestigious Max Planck Society, which operates 80 scientific research institutes across Germany. Federal authorities forwarded the complaint to prosecutors and police in at least three states, who decided to take action.

Shouldn’t all of the laws passed under Nazi rule have been repealed anyway, either during the postwar occupation or the subsequent transfer of sovereignty to the Federal Republic in the west? One wonders what other oddities emanating from Hitler’s Reichstag are lurking in modern German law.

One of the more appealing aspects of the new job is that it’s an opportunity to make an impact at an institution that serves a community that historically has not been served well by higher education. The community in turn seems more enthusiastic than most about the university, in spite of a rather marked “town-gown” gap in terms of the demographics of the university faculty versus the student body and wider community.

The downside of this arrangement for those not comfortable in the limelight—a category I firmly count myself within—is that nary a happening at TAMIU fails to make the newspaper. Case in point: a goodly share of my future department is quoted in a single article in yesterday’s Laredo Morning Times, a fate I am likely to share in the future.

The potential silver lining: I doubt I’ll ever become as ubiquitous as Frequent Commenter Scott. Being a sharp-dressed, vaguely handsome tall guy trumps everything I can bring to the table with the media.

I’ve been duped drafted into teaching a graduate public policy seminar in the fall. Would any of my fair readers have suggestions on textbooks? I’ve already ordered exam copies of the Mungowitz’s tome from Norton and CQ’s two possibilities; anything else I should seriously consider?

Update: An email correspondent recommended Public Policymaking: An Introduction by James Anderson and Theories of the Policy Process by Paul Sabatier.

The GOP primary in the first congressional district election to replace Bobby Jindal in the House is headed to a run-off election next month, as southshore candidate Steve Scalise came up short of the absolute majority he needed to avoid facing the second-place candidate on April 5th. This also means that the general election will take place on May 3rd, where he will face Gilda Reed and two independents in Louisiana's first plurality-winner election to Congress in 30 years.

At least in my precinct, the turnout in the special primary election was abysmal; we had 27 voters (11 Democrats and independents, 16 Republicans) out of 512 registered voters in 14 hours. On the upside, at least we didn’t have to turn anyone away or fiddle with provisional ballots this time around.

Let me get this straight: the Democrats penalized Michigan and Florida for holding their primaries early, because those states wanted to have disproportionate influence on the nomination process. And the proposed remedy for the situation is that Michigan and Florida may get “do-overs” and thus have disproportionate influence over the nomination process—likely even more influence than they would have had their delegations been counted in the first place (or even if the DNC had been as sensible as the Republicans and just docked them 50% of their delegates, which would have knocked down all the silly Bush v. Gore II arguments that got us to this point).

Is there a planet in the universe where this makes any sense whatsoever? Your Democratic National Committee—making the rules up as they go along.

As you might appreciate, the immigration issue is a big deal in the environs of my future employer and residence. Today’s Laredo Morning Times carries three articles on the issue: one addressing unfunded mandates associated with law enforcement detention of illegals, and another features Washington kabuki theater on immigration reform, but I think the most interesting of the three is a report on a lecture by Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations on the conflation of immigration, terrorism, and border security.

The race to replace Bobby Jindal in Congress has largely played out off of my radar screen, but the Times-Picayune reviews the recent round of mudslinging from the contenders. For some reason, I’ve only gotten mailings from the Scalise campaign; I guess the other Republicans are working from an older GOP registered voter list—I changed affiliations from Libertarian to Republican in January so I could vote in the February presidential preference primary, when I thought the GOP race would be more competitive than the Democratic one, and upcoming special elections.

In terms of my personal self-interest, I’m hoping that no candidate gets 50% of the vote so I’ll have another election in May—I’ll miss working on the April election date due to being at the Midwest, and if there’s no runoff the general election will be held then.

I forgot to mention that I appeared on OTB Radio yesterday, so if you have an hour to kill you can hear me, James Joyner, Dave Schuler, and Steve Verdon pontificate on Hillary, Obama, McCain, the economy, Venezuela/Colombia/Ecuador, and a billion other topics.

In addition to accepting a job this week, I also found out that the job I internally ranked* somewhere around #2 or #3 on my initial list way back around APSA (before, I hasten to add, the TAMIU job was even a glimmer in someone’s eye) wasn’t filled and will be re-advertised next year.

* Incidentally, one of these days when I’m really bored I may try to quantify my “gut-feeling-based” scoring method for ranking jobs. I think I have a pretty good idea of the factors that are involved; finding the right the signs and weights will be the big challenges, but I have 3–4 years’ spreadsheets’ worth of data (probably around 200–300 jobs) to play with now.

The Federal Highway Administration is taking comments on proposed amendments to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the book that dictates how federal, state, territorial, and local officials sign and mark streets and highways in the United States. The batch of proposed changes is pretty lengthy this time around, including new standards on consistent signing for toll roads, new recommendations on signs and pavement markings for roundabouts, and quite a few more pictographic signs replacing text legends borrowed from Canada and Mexico, including graphical “no passing,” “falling rocks,” and “no straight through” signs.

Other changes of interest, to me at least:

• States and territories that currently use sequential exit numbers will be required to adopt distance-based (“reference location”) exit numbering.
• New traffic signal standards for “protected/permissive” left turn signals that will apply to new installations only, including provisions for flashing red and yellow arrows.
• Adoption of special warning signs for motorcyclists and a symbol for a hypothetical nationally-interoperable electronic toll collection system.
• New “hybrid” signal types for usually-dark situations such as pedestrian crossings and emergency vehicle crossings.
• A requirement that all speed limit drops of 10 mph or more include a new-style “speed limit ahead” sign (this last one is similar to a suggestion I made in the last round of changes).

I’m very happy to announce to all of my readers that I’ve accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of political science in the Department of Social Sciences at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas beginning in the fall. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to teach and conduct research at one of America’s newest universities in a dynamic, rapidly-changing community.

Perhaps most happily, I won’t be getting there until well after all the politicians leave town!

The “Chris Lawrence needs a job” campaign will be making an important announcement regarding the future of the campaign sometime Monday, likely in the early afternoon, here at Signifying Nothing.

I’m Chris Lawrence and I approve this message.

The reason you can’t read this (yet): Network Solutions won’t let me renew my domain name until I prove to their satisfaction that I am who I say I am, and I can’t transfer my domain to any of the registrars who believe I am who I say I am because I need to prove I’m me to NSI first.

The only thing to do today while the car gets fixed and I’m stuck at home: grade my American politics exams. There’s no point in dealing with job stuff until after Friday afternoon, by which point the wave function will collapse and I’ll either have options or not. So I’ll grade my exams quietly and wait for Pep Boys to call.

Update: This would have been a better theory had I not left the exams in my office yesterday night, even though I could have sworn I put them in my bag.

You know, Toshiba won’t exactly be helping Blu-Ray adoption anytime soon by dumping a raft of players on the market that, in addition to playing HD DVDs, are extremely good upscaling DVD players in their own right, including being the only dedicated players I’ve seen that handle pillarboxing of 4:3 DVD content over HDMI correctly. At sane viewing distances, I suspect most non-videophiles couldn’t tell the difference between an upscaled DVD and high-def anyway—Jennifer Morrison doesn’t look any different in HD and upscaled DVD that I can tell.

That said, I can’t figure out why you’d even spend $50 at this point on an XBox HD DVD add-on, since it doesn’t upscale DVDs any better than the built-in DVD player on the box.

Marvin King, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Mississippi, my graduate alma mater, has just launched a blog focusing on African-American politics and political science; as someone whose research and teaching interests in Southern politics overlap that area, it’s good to have another voice contributing to the blogosphere’s coverage of black politics from a scholarly perspective.

The Times-Picayune reports that the end result of last month’s Louisiana caucus and last week’s primary is that John McCain has pretty much swept the state’s delegates who were appointed at today’s state GOP convention, adding another 43 delegates to McCain’s prohibitively large total that’s now somewhere in the mid-800s depending on exactly who you ask.

Just in case it isn’t clear, this package is supposed to be coming to my house. Which, when I checked this morning, was not in Mississippi.

February 15, 2008       04:35:00 AM     JACKSON MS US   Departure Scan
February 15, 2008       01:09:00 AM     JACKSON MS US   Arrival Scan
February 14, 2008       09:53:00 PM     NEW ORLEANS LA US       Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       07:59:00 PM     NEW ORLEANS LA US       Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       06:48:00 PM     NEW ORLEANS LA US       Arrival Scan
February 14, 2008       10:14:00 AM     MESQUITE TX US  Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       08:23:00 AM     MESQUITE TX US  Arrival Scan
February 14, 2008       03:41:00 AM     OKLAHOMA CITY OK US     Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       12:27:00 AM     OKLAHOMA CITY OK US     Arrival Scan
February 13, 2008       08:55:00 PM     TULSA OK US     Departure Scan
February 13, 2008       08:38:00 PM     TULSA OK US     Shipment picked up from seller's facility

I guess I won’t be reading The Last Colony on my trip to [interview location redacted] after all.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Texas’ anti-sex-toy law, presumably also invalidating the previously-mocked similar law on the books in my former home state, Mississippi.

Steven Taylor on the primary process:

Of course, it would be nice if we could trash this byzantine process and construct a better one, but then again, a magic pony would be nice, too.

“The professor is disorganized” → “the professor doesn’t use PowerPoint™ and give us the notes in Blackboard™ so we can sleep through class.”

I managed to get through all of The Ghost Brigades while working the polls Saturday; we averaged a measly 7.4 voters per hour, mostly Democrats enthralled with Obamamania.

In other news, I have a job interview next week; it’ll make for a very busy week, since I have to go to San Jose for TLC just after getting back from the interview, but I’m looking forward to it and the people there seem very excited to have me come visit.

Last, but not least, this isn’t the news you want to read the first day you use the streetcar (and a ¾-mile walk) to get to work.

The Times-Picayune reports on Obama’s visit to Tulane this morning. I was somewhat tempted to go but my desire to sleep in today (since I have a 15+-hour day on Saturday, in addition to the regular 8 am class and the tornado warning that resulted in me getting no sleep Tuesday night) outweighed my desire to stand in line at the crack of dawn.

Meanwhile, Tubby will be here in New Orleans tomorrow to further his apparent goal of running his wife’s campaign into the ground.