By BILL MAXWELL, St. Petersburg Times

Here we go again. Apparently, conservative lawmakers in Tallahassee are going to have their way with "The Swanee River (Old Folks at Home)," Stephen Foster's "darkey" ditty that is Florida's state song.

We call Florida the Sunshine State. We should call it the Benighted State, mainly because our lawmakers, mostly Republicans, are a bunch of ideologues whose constituents follow them blindly. And our Democrats can't even hold a legitimate primary to send delegates to their national convention. We're funny folks.

Many of Florida's public schools are being demonized so much so that they are perceived as harming students more than helping them.

Here we go again. Parents are upset with language or a specific word in the books their children are reading at school. This time, as in many other instances nationwide, the offender is the N-word.

Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton should be leery of ever trusting the word of another black person, especially the word of elected officials, celebrities and other elites. She most certainly should never again trust the word of black preachers.Too many blacks have betrayed Clinton. They have been disloyal. They have lied to her, many to her face.

The halo above Barack Obama's head is dangerous. It is causing a lot of trouble for a lot of people, forcing them into silence. But that halo will tarnish if the young senator is elected president.

The first telephone call came around 4:30 Thursday afternoon as I was about to turn on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." The second came a few minutes later. Within 30 minutes, I had received eight calls about Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where a lone gunman had killed five students.

I cannot count the number of women I have heard call Hillary Rodham Clinton a "damned fool" and "an idiot," along with other names, for staying with her adulterous husband, President Bill Clinton, after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Is the United States, an exemplar of democracy and equality, ready for a woman as president? Incredibly, we are still asking this tired old question at the beginning of 2008, when 18 women (my best count) are heads of state among the world's 192 countries. Ironically, many of these nations are undemocratic, and some are hostile to women's rights.

In light of Barack Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses, I am revisiting a column I wrote on Oct. 29, 2006, about Obama's presidential candidacy.