Barack Obama once expressed a fear that his opponent would first attack his lack of experience and then "mention he's black."  Of course, that was before he fully appreciated the inpenetratable political suit of armor his black skin represents. 

There was a clever axiom floating around a few months ago that this year's presidential race would pit the only Republican capable of winning against the only Democrat capable of losing.  And while bad choices by the McCain camp are largely responsible for dispelling the first half of that ephemeral adage, credit crunch anxiety actually shares tribute for destruction of the second with what can best be described as useful racism.

Sure, all GOP candidates seeking the White House are forced to deal with a national media so ensconced with de Facto Democratic campaign volunteers, it's amazing any ever get elected.  But the skin color of their current candidate has created an irrational PC ecstasy amongst the fourth estate, one that finds them simultaneously agitating and exploiting racial divides to an extreme that borders slimy.

And, while its impact has been somewhat diminished by the current financial crisis - which ironically was caused largely by similarly quixotic Liberal racial politics - it may still prove quite significant in certain battleground states.

Ironically, McCain has wisely steered clear of yesteryear's hot-potato ethnic issues (affirmative action, welfare, crime, et al). The Arizonan even made the arguably honorable but unquestionably imprudent early decision not to unwrap the gift horse that was loudmouth Jeremiah Wright.  Yet, even as they tiptoe carefully down the PC high road, neither McCain nor his running mate can make a move or utter a word without stepping in something absurdly spun by either the opposing camp or the MSM as racially evocative.   

Back in September, a quite topical McCain Ad [video] questioned Obama's economic experience and attacked his advisor "on mortgage and housing policy," former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines:

Great Ad -- and right on target.  But amazingly, many in the media, including Time's Karen Tumulty, cried foul.  Why?  Because the video contained "sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman."  The calculus: One black Obama plus one black Raines plus one white "stuck with the bill" taxpayer equals one subliminal interracial mugging.

Ridiculous?  Try this one -- the following month, when Sarah Palin mentioned at a California rally that Obama was "palling around with terrorists," the AP branded the comment as carrying "a racially tinged subtext."  Hmmm.  The Alaskan governor was referring to Obama's still inadequately explained close relationship with unrepentant home-grown terrorist William Ayers - who just happens to be white.  Yet the preposterously twisted charge continues its regurgitation on cable news channels ad nauseam.

Such discussion-avoiding dishonesty would seem better suited to racial ambulance-chasers of the Jackson/Sharpton school than to the post-racial savior of man.

But somehow, the Senator has learned to adapt.  

Obama's melanin-empowered suit of armor has also shielded him from questions regarding past affiliations with the voter-fraud felons at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) [must see video shreds his assertions].  The group's vote-rigging apparatus in 15 states, many of them hotly contested "swing states," is currently the subject of numerous local and at least one federal probe.  Obama dismisses the matter as "a distraction," and has effectively jumped aboard the Democrats' dodge that in attacking the highly partisan voter registration group, Republicans are attempting to suppress the predominately minority and low-income votes it facilitates by its community organization actions.  

Last week, civil rights veteran Rep. John Lewis of Georgia compared McCain/Palin to uber-racist segregationist George Wallace and condemned their campaign tactics as "sowing the seeds of hatred and division," adding that "as one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign." 

Amazing -- there's been no mention of Jeremiah Wright's anti-white, anti-American venom the Obama's dutifully sat through every Sunday for 20 years.  Nor any crowd inciters of the disparity of racial set-asides or the disproportionate incidence of black crime caliber.  Inconsequential - as it appears that when running against a candidate of color in 2008, virtually every sentence criticizing your opponent is parsed until non-existent racial "code words" are uncovered.

Peter Beinhart recently explained that the old tactic of spotlighting recidivist freed murders like Willie Horton or inner city "welfare queens" squeezing welfare meal-tickets from their loins has been replaced by a subtler form of modern racism:

So it's not enough that McCain's strengths of patriotism and great personal sacrifice to his country have been preempted by incredibly inopportune economic realities, they've also been denigrated to the status of racist ploys.   

How diabolically brilliant -- by the standards the media have created, virtually any sales pitch team McCain comes up with must therefore be negative. No wonder we're being pelted daily with polls claiming a majority of the electorate is tired of McCain's "going negative." By pressing the race angle, the media have convinced their intellectually force-fed audience that simply seeking the truth about Obama's unsavory associations with unrepentant domestic terrorists, felonious merchants of voter fraud, insufferably racist and America-hating spiritual leaders - and let's not forget convicted corrupt political fundraiser Tony Rezko - is itself unsavory.

They and the Democrats have also fraudulently convinced the worried masses that their miseries -- including the almost daily loss of value to their 401(k) -- are due to economic policies embraced by McCain -- who Barney Frank claims is trying to place the blame on poor black people.

Any questions why Obama never leaves home without his Cheshire Cat grin?

To hear the media tell it, the fact that the clearly superior candidate isn't commanding a 20 point lead in the polls is only explainable by rampant racism.  Just yesterday, Newsweek's Howard Fineman stoked those fires by asking "how the heck" this isn't a "colossal blowout?" Even the existing spread worries those who believe that some proclaimed pro-Obama whites might not vote black once cloistered in the comfy privacy of the voting booth.   Still others lay claim that hordes of unsophisticated white Neanderthals will never vote for a black candidate under any circumstances. 

But the Real Clear Politics National Average currently has Obama leading 49.6 to 43.1.   That's a far greater spread than George Bush enjoyed over John Kerry at any time during October of 2004.  The semi-black candidate is on top by 6.5%, despite his nearly unprecedented lack of experience, his dubious distinction as National Journal ‘s most liberal senator of 2007 and his admittedly wealth-redistributing tax proposals that will surely decimate small businesses.  He's actually ahead by double digits in many polls despite his socialist leanings, shady past alliances and equally mysterious contemporary allegiances.

And yet, sanctimonious pundits and other assorted political hacks consistently go unchallenged declaring that many preferring the experienced war hero who has demonstrated unwavering bravery, tremendous national security acumen, an independent's willingness to buck his party, and a penchant for cutting government waste, do so with insidious incentive.  Last month, a bunch of AP writers   decided it necessary to raise the white guilt bar higher by releasing the results of their recent joint poll with Yahoo News. They announced that "one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks -- many calling them ‘lazy,' ‘violent' or responsible for their own troubles" which could "cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close."  And more than a third of white Democrats and Independents "agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks."

But notice the focus of the poll.  Few Republicans would vote for anyone with Obama's track record.  Liberal Democrats would vote for him even if he had tapped Wright for second chair. It's the likely undecided voters -- potential McCain converts -- being targeted by this insidious campaign to win an election through racial intimidation. One can only hope that the center and slightly left-of-center electorate is made of smarter stuff, but it's simply amazing how many people will go to drastic lengths to prove their "tolerance."

Which segues nicely to our next topic.

Not a day goes by that some Liberal whiner isn't raising the Bradley Effect as proof of white racism.  But their portrayals of the phenomenon -- named for a black Democrat who lost the California governor's race in 1982 after being well ahead in the polls -- are complete shams, crafted to coerce more ballots into the Obama column by further fomenting white guilt.

And it's the media that - as an upshot of ignorance, deliberate misinformation, or perhaps both -- perpetuate the distrust advanced by the effect's mythology.

For example -- in a recent op-ed attempting to explain the term to those she accused of misusing it, LA Times' Patt Morrison instead managed only to embody the conflation:

Earth to Patt: those two sentences completely contradict one another.  Either they lied in the first place, or they were forthright with the pollster, but "flinched" when they got into the booth.  You can't have it both ways.

Fox News' generally judicious Juan Williams appears to be equally confused on the issue.  On the October 6^th Special Report, he told Britt Hume that the Obama camp was working under the assumption they'd need to overcome a 5% false poll lead due to the Bradley effect, because "you have a certain number of people who just won't admit they refuse to vote for a black man."  But back in August, Williams wrote that "there is no telling how many white voters are lying to pollsters when they say they plan to vote for a black man to be president."

While these two descriptions might appear accordant with Morrison's first, and therefore indistinguishable from each other, they actually couldn't be any less congruent, and this is key. 

Both represent the typical Liberal lament that white voters might be less than honest with pollsters when asked their preference between a black and white candidate.  But while the first specifically implies racism, the second allows for an entirely different - and more likely -- explanation.

For starters, intransigent multi-cultists would rather die that speak ill of even the most loathsome individuals of darker pigment, lest they be branded with the scarlet "I" of "intolerance," or - gasp -- the dreaded "R" word.  But given the media's remarkable success convincing whites that they we are all born accountable for the original sin of racism, the urge to prove one's virtue can entice even the noblest of men.

Accordingly, along with the self-assured-highly-evolved celebrants of diversity, many otherwise clear-headed poll subjects intuitively spout the name "Obama" whenever asked their candidate preference. 

PC programming, not white bigotry.

Truth be told, they'll likely be many more Liberal morons voting Obama simply because he's black than redneck simpletons voting against him for the same reason. 

Of course, that didn't stop James Carville from hinting of Bradley-inspired race riots.  During CNN's post-second-debate analysis, the always rational Democratic strategist assured host Anderson Cooper that "if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there."

Nicely played, James -- images of Watts and Rodney King to close the deal with white fear. 

What, no media outrage at the dangerous black man stereotyping?

                                              

Score yet another racial-disharmony plus for Sir Obama.

The Left shares Spike Lee's vision of the America portrayed in his films -- real villains wear white faces and their oppressed black victims ultimately become retaliatory heroes.  And now is the time for all whites to accept that vision, admit their guilt, and seek salvation by supporting Obama's Messianic destiny.   And, just as they have in promoting the global warming hoax, the media have worked overtime to label dissenters - who buy neither the white-America-stinks premise nor its thereby superfluous solution -- as cretins of self-serving motivation.

And they'll be no sacred cows. Remember how quickly they downgraded their favorite Arkansan from "first black president" to suspected bigot for the sin of noticing that, like Obama, Jesse Jackson had once won the South Carolina primary?

So we must assume that after helping Obama underhandedly manipulate white guilt in pursuit of ultimate executive power, they'll make similar attempts assisting his wielding such authority should he achieve it.

How far a stretch would it be for the MSM to help racially intimidate congressmen voting or even presenting floor speeches against a President Obama backed bill?  Or decry a pending - albeit highly unlikely -- overturning of a President Obama veto as a "racist override?"    As always, the potential unintended consequences of their naïve meddling are as endless as the grounds for such interference are baseless. Can you say "No Reparations, No Peace?"

Remember when Chris Matthews asked Obama supporter David Bonoir whether Hillary's refusal to surrender the Democratic Primary would give "white voters a permission slip to vote against an African-American candidate the longer she's in the race?"

We don't need permission from Obama, his cheerleaders at MSNBC or any other insufferable media hacks.  History reveals that when the measure of a candidate meets America's standards, he or she will be elected -- regardless of outward appearance.  Consider this:  In 2000, black Republican J.C Watts earned 65% of the vote to be reelected to a fourth term as Congressman of Oklahoma's Fourth District, which is only 6.7% black. 

If the true racists were silenced, Obama would have much more to worry about.

And we -- decidedly less.