Table for Two!

What would we do without Johnny Apple? He's got a classic process story about the Kerry Campaign in South Carolina, which no doubt enabled the great gourmand to eat well in Charleston. Unsurprisingly, the thrust of his story elides Kerry's major weakness as a Democratic presidential candidate.

That weakness is this: Kerry is the un-soul brother. He's the honkiest of honkies. South Carolina is important because it brings to the table the African-American community in large numbers (40%, more or less, of the primary voters will be black). Kerry's ability to engage African-American voters is, to put it politely, unproven. So that's Kerry's next challenge, not (as Mr. Apple asserts) to run TV commercials on local SC stations to prove his "commitment" to the state.