(1) Racial gap between Clinton, Obama widens; & (2) Race spells trouble for the Democrats.

From The Hill:

The racial gap between the top Democratic presidential candidates appears to be widening, according to a new Rasmussen poll.

The results of the survey, released Monday, show that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has the support of only 16 percent of black voters, while 66 percent back Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

The poll puts Clinton ahead among white voters, 41 percent to 27 percent.
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From Time:

Whenever longtime Democrats gather to note how the chemistry and calculus of the 2008 campaign seem to favor their party this year, one or another will always add some version of the following: "Yeah, but we could screw this up before it's over."

Far-fetched as it would have seemed a month ago, the seeds of self-destruction are being planted in the war of coded words about race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Both campaigns are stoking this fire — and worrying at the same time about what this could do to them in the fall. They ought to be concerned: Keep this up and neither candidate may be able to marshal the votes from the various corners of the Democratic coalition that he or she will need in the fall. As pollster Andrew Kohut has noted, a party which found that it had at least two candidates who were seen as widely "acceptable" to its various factions just a few weeks ago could soon find that happy consensus has evaporated.