Racism in the Election

My opinion is that Obama needs to be ahead by 2 to 5 points or so on election day to be comfortable. I believe that some portion of the electorate, hopefully small, will change their minds based on race as they go to pull the lever in the voting booth. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Obama camp should whine about it and I don't think it's an excuse for Obama to lose the election. There is certainly upside for him because of his race. But I do think it's a serious issue and that if they go into the election "tied" in the polls, then I think McCain may win because of this issue.

From Michael Grunwald of Time Magazine:

"Race is the elephant in the room of the 2008 campaign. In West Virginia's primary, one out of every four Hillary Clinton voters actually admitted to pollsters that race was a factor in their vote; that may be an Appalachian outlier, but even in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio the figure was a troubling 1 in 10. It's a tribute to America's racial progress that a biracial man born before Jim Crow died could come this close to the presidency, but if you believe that contemporary America is color-blind, you probably also believe the Georgia Congressman who recently called Obama "uppity," then claimed he had no idea it was a traditional Southern slur for blacks who didn't know their place. ("Uppity" often modified the slur everyone knows is a slur.) Blacks are still known as "minorities" because this is still a majority white country, and Obama is just as anxious to avoid running as "the black candidate" as McCain is anxious to avoid running as "the Republican candidate." This is something to keep in mind now that the Thomas Friedmans and Arianna Huffingtons of the world are imploring Obama to get angry, to shed his above-the-fray cool and fight back against the McCain campaign's silly-season accusations that he's a charismatic chauvinist who wants to teach kindergartners how to have sex. Over the past 18 months, Obama has been attacked as a naive novice, an empty suit, a tax-and-spend liberal, an arugula-grazing élitist and a corrupt ward heeler, but the only attacks that clearly stung him involved the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — attacks that portrayed him as an angry black man under the influence of an even angrier black man." For Obama, Race Remains Elephant in the Room - TIME

And here is some related commentary from Jack Cafferty on CNN: