JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE READ TODAY'S DUMBEST TIMES PIECE, HERE COMES THE NEXT ARTICLE:

White Guys Are Back (Gail Collins, 4/5/08, New York Times)

It was probably inevitable. The historic contest between a woman and an African-American for the presidential nomination is now all about white men.

Not that the white male voters asked for this. They’ve been uncommitted, supporting Hillary in one contest and Barack in the next. But all that hemming and hawing has turned them into the deciding factor in the big upcoming primary in Pennsylvania.

Reporters are spread all over the state, searching for white men to interview. American Legion halls under siege! Both campaigns engage in extensive research, which reveals that white men are very concerned about the economy. Duh.

Courting them is extremely tricky. It’s not like you can promise that under your presidency, more white men would be appointed to the Supreme Court.

The candidates’ desperation to make contact is showing.

In Ex-Steel City, Voters Deny Race Plays a Role (Paul Vitello, 4/4/08, New York Times)

Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania. [...]

Americans have a long tradition of voting against candidates rather than for them. But in the first presidential campaign with an African-American as a serious contender, there may be a new gyration in the way voters think, the need to explain the vote against the candidate who is black.

“I don’t say this because he’s black, but the guy just seems arrogant to me, the way he expects things to go his way,” said Harry Brobst, a truck driver who had never registered to vote until this year.

Mr. Brobst said he would vote in the primary “not so much for,” but against.

People are not shy about dismissing out of hand Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York for her supposed untrustworthiness or Senator John McCain of Arizona for what is described as his “100 years” approach to the Iraq war.

But when dismissing Mr. Obama, voters in this former steel center, whatever their racial feelings, seem almost compelled to list their reasons, if only to pre-empt the unspoken race question.

Unspoken? Anybody out there think this reporter wasn't peppering his interviewees with leading questions?