Writes Frank Rich

EXCERPTS:

Part of the Republicans’ difficulty in countering Mr. Obama, should they have to, is their own cynical racial politics. For the most part, race has been the dog that hasn’t barked in this campaign despite the (largely) white press’s endless fretting about whether the Illinois senator is too white for black voters and too black for white voters. Most Americans aren’t racist, most Republicans included. (Those who are won’t vote for the Democratic presidential candidate even if it’s not Mr. Obama.) But the G.O.P., by its own doing, is nonetheless saddled with a history that most recently includes “macaca” and Katrina, Mr. Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones University in 2000 and the nonexistent black population of its Congressional delegation.

There’s another, even more fascinating hidden story line in the 2008 campaign that speaks to the potential prowess of an Obama candidacy. Despite the thuggish name-calling of a few right-wing die-hards (e.g., Rush Limbaugh mocking “Barack Hussein Odumbo“), the dirty secret of a number of conservatives is that they are disarmed by Mr. Obama even though they know his record is more liberal than Mrs. Clinton’s.

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REFERENCES:

1. Obama Takes His Campaign to Harlem
2. Obama Regrets
3. “Obama biro, yawne yo!” (Obama is coming, clear the way)
4. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
5. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
6. Barack Obama in His Own Words
7. Great Speeches by African Americans: Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and Others (Thrift Edition)
8. The State of Black America 2007: Portrait of the Black Male
9. Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama