Obama will lose many more votes because of where he is on the issues (or his lack of the ability to take a stand on any of them), his inexperience, and his lack of character than directly atrributable to his color.

He will get many more votes due to his color from AA voters than he will lose for that single issue from white/latino voters.

Race is most certainly an issue in this election, and it is a net gain for Obama.

He knows this, and that is why he is the one that keeps making race an issue.

I do see a difference between “I’m going to vote for this guy because of his skin color” and “I’m not going to vote for this guy (and will instead vote for his opponent) because of his skin color”.

That may seem odd, but compare to, say, liking a person from a particular state.

“I was on the fence but I see my guy picked a VP from Colorado. Hey! The hometown guy! Yeah, that’ll swing my vote.” vs. “I was on the fence but I see that the other guy picked a guy from Pennsylvania… PENNSYLVANIA??? I’ll be dead in the cold, cold ground before I ever put a Pennsylvanian one heartbeat away from the button!”

I suppose to put a finer point on it: It’s silly and superficial (and fallacious) to see something as silly/superficial as skin color as something that makes a person “One Of Us”… but there is a great deal of historical ugliness behind deciding that skin color is a definite indicator that someone is NOT “One Of Us”.

Historically, 85-90% of blacks vote for the Democrat. So black or white the Democrat is going to get the black votes.

It would be interesting to see if a black at the top of the Republican ticket changed that dynamic.

Will a black presidential candidate generate more actual black votes – i.e. a greater number actually turn out to vote since there’s a black poised to become president? I reckon we’ll see.

“Let’s dispose of the canard that there is something wrong with black people voting in overwhelming numbers for a black candidate”

As a visible minority myself, I always feel that minority members who vote for a candidate simply because he/she looks just like them shows the hidden insecurity of those individuals. On the one hand, miniority members demand that they should be judged only on their abilities, not on their color/appearance; yet they turn around and vote for someone based on looks without finding out the real substance underneath.

is the notion that “racism” as directed towards those of African descent has deeper roots here than anti-Catholicism. For those of us of an English heritage, anti-Catholicism was taken with mother’s milk long before black Africans were seen or heard of outside the circles of academics and the most intrepid merchants and explorers.

England’s break with the Catholic Church was still fresh at the founding of the American colonies and the divisions that tore at England’s fabric for two centuries were present here as well and remained so until quite recently. “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” is a fairly recent description of Democrat inclined Irish in this Country.