The governor of Pennsylvania famously said that the residents of his state were not going to elect a black man in the primary. He got a lot of flack for it. What he didn't say was whether or not they were even ready to elect a woman. Historically, Pennsylvania has elected precious few women or black politicians.

There's no consensus explanation among political operatives and scholars for the political glass ceiling in this state, which currently has only one black and one woman in its 21-member congressional delegation and has never had a black or female governor. Only one black and one woman have ever sought the governorship on a major party ticket… Some believe the concentration of blacks in urban areas works against black candidates for statewide office who must seek votes in predominantly white rural counties once famously compared to Alabama… Pennsylvania's voting-age population is more than 50 percent female and about 10 percent black, but neither group has comparable representation among top state and federal elective offices. One of the worst showings: Only 15 percent of the 253 seats in the Legislature are filled by women, leaving Pennsylvania 43rd nationally.

If you're looking at the state's primary election strictly through race and gender glasses — de rigueur for this campaign season — then polls are showing that Pennsylvanians find a white woman candidate the lesser evil. But what happens in November when the white woman or black man is up against John McCain? Will Pennsylvania turn red? [AP]

A presidential election is not the time for pettiness, but is a white male politician really in a position, ever, to complain about the amount of media attention he's getting because of the combination of his race and gender? Should we be boohooing for John Edwards because the media has painted what is essentially a three-person race to be a two-person one?

We live in a political culture dominated by celebrity journalists covering celebrity politicians. Big media want to consort with the big stars — currently New York Sen. Clinton (plus Bill) and the charismatic Illinois Sen. Obama (with Oprah in his entourage). One recalls Angela Lansbury's quip when television executives in Los Angeles canceled her very popular show. "Nobody in this town watches 'Murder, She Wrote,' " the actress said. "Only the public watches."

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden recently hit the nail on the noggin as he explained why a candidate as experienced as he gets so little attention. After all, polls show that in a general election, Biden would run even with leading Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Democrats, Biden said, have a talented woman and a talented African American, and "they've sort of sucked all the oxygen out of the air."

I don't believe that John Edwards is fighting some losing battle with U.S. journalists. I think he gets quite a bit of press, and if he brought it like I'm confident, being a moderate J.E. fan, he could, I'm sure the media would be more than happy to place him up on the Obama/Clinton pedestal. For now, he and/or his supporters can continue to play the race/gender card as much as they want, but it's a hard sell (at least, to moi) when you're living in a country where the elected officials are overwhelmingly white males. If a voter wants to learn more about a candidate that's not a frontrunner, there are lots of resources out there for them. People shouldn't be relying on soundbites and who appears on Ellen and Oprah to be helping them make their voting decisions, anyway. [SI]

According to NBC Nightly News's series on black women, we are destined to die alone (and probably of breast cancer) as we clutch our undergraduate diplomas and curse our sorry fates! Just kidding. Mostly. I was pretty hard on Rehema Ellis and Co. Tuesday and Wednesday, but that was mostly because I really wanted the series to be excellent, and it's only been so-so. Not bad, just less than what I expected.

I liked last night's segment — even though it contained some more dismal info, this time about how black women aren't getting married anymore and, basically, how a good black man is hard to find — because of the personal relationship stories the women, including Rehema Ellis, shared. I also didn't know that so many single black women adopt children.

Tonight's segment revolves around black women voters, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, which is pretty much what this election revolves around, too.

That it's called Nigger isn't the only "special" thing about Nas's new album, which is set for a nice Black History Month release. The rapper let MTV in on some of the tracks. Judging by the man's own descriptions, they're real gems.

"I have a song called 'The Fear,' " he said. "The full title of the record is 'The Fear of the Black Man's D—.' That's some sh– you can get comedy [from], or you can get some seriousness from it when you talk about the barbaric castrations that happened in our past — which is very serious, nothing to laugh at…"

"It's not an attack on white people at all," he promised, regarding the record's content. "It's knowledge; it's understanding for all people. It's not an attack on any race."

Nas clarified that he will be combating a myriad of racial slurs, not just the one after which he named his album.

"It's about the attacks that have happened to blacks, whites, all ethnicities," he continued. " 'Mick' niggers, 'guinea' niggers, 'kike' niggers. I have a song called 'You a Nigger Too.' "

I underestimated Nas. Using his album title to bring all maligned ethnic groups together is a brilliant plan to eliminate discrimination. We're all niggers! Thanks, Nas.

I'm all for service journalism, and black women need all the breast cancer information possible, considering the disparity in fatality rates. I'm also all for the concept of this NBC Nightly News series, in the sense that I thought it was going to give black women some due for the accomplishments we have made through the years and also bring some new, meaty information to the table. Instead, it's sort of doom and gloom — Monday we got a report on why black men aren't reaching the same professional level as black women, and yesterday we got the scary breast cancer report. It's not that I'm accusing NBC of providing false information, all of it is true. But it's all very elementary and not very helpful or in-depth. There are three more segments, and here's hoping things get a little more informative and a little less like the producers just searched the internet for "black women and education" and "black women and breast cancer" and reported whatever information the first couple of hits produced.

After the jump, check the web extra for some health tips.

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Yesterday marked Day One of the five-part NBC Nightly News series on THE BLACK WOMAN, and it's safe to assume that after viewing it, the average black woman would have nothing to say but "duh." Although, a segment like this isn't supposed to tell black women about themselves, it's supposed to be informing other people about black women. Many of the stats in the piece — that black women outnumber black men in college or that black women have more buying power — were evident already.

The segment, if not particularly informative, was innocuous, except for the fact that, instead of enumerating all of the reasons that black women are doing so well, the focus seemed to be explaining why black men are doing so poorly. They make it seem like black women aren't really making such great strides, and it's just that the system is failing black men. Surely you can't discuss one without the other to some extent — if everything was 50/50 between black males and females this series probably wouldn't exist — but it's unfortunate that positive news about black women must go hand-in-hand with dismal news about black men. Dismal news that also summarily ignores the large number of black men who are college-educated and/or successful.

After the jump, an extended online interview with Essence's Angela Burt-Murray.

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