The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968, when Richard Nixon built a Silent Majority out of lower- and middle-class folks frightened or disturbed by hippies and student radicals and blacks rioting in the inner cities.

The 2008 race may turn on which party will win the lower-and middle-class whites in industrial and border states–the Democrats’ base from the New Deal to the 1960s, but “Reagan Democrats” in most presidential elections since then.

It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as “the other”–as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.

The Obama team also notes that McCain himself has been the victim of a smear. In the South Carolina primary in 2000, GOP operatives spread the rumor that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child.

Obama says he’s ready for the onslaught…..[more]