You say: "...caucuses are a tradition that hasn't really been questioned until a major democratic candidate with poor orgainization skills decided to paint them as unfair.."

Actually, caucuses are a tradition that hasn't been questioned before because they basically flew under the radar. Admittedly, Obama's camp has done a bang up job of capturing them, but it has bet the farm in doing so. One could argue that the caucus strategy is a rather cynical attempt to not only bypass the popular will, but capture public imagination out of all proportion to the standing of the candidate in question. Caucuses are essentially Darwinian and thus are tailor made for Obama's strongest, most energized core group: the young and healthy and unencumbered. Is this the most democratic way to select a candidate? I would argue: absolutely not.

My fairly dim view of caucuses became considerably darker after firsthand experience with the process last week here in TX. Wjat I saw was pretty much the election equivalent of a three-legged potato race. Granted Obama has had some success in the primaries you mention, but his candidacy would hardly have survived absent all those caucus wins.

Also, as late as early last week, the vast majority of TX voters weren't even aware of the two-step process - daytime voting, nighttime caucusing. Many went home from the polls still unaware of the second step. This says to me that the process was very much under the radar and comprehended only by serious activists. The Obama campaign was able to mobilize huge numbers of very young voters, many of them students, to basically wrest the caucuses away from Clinton, whose voter demographics seriously handicapped her in this regard.

Following Hurricane Katrina, Bill Clinton teamed up with George H.W. Bush and together these two former presidents raised something like $130 million for the benefit of hurricane victims. This was bipartisanship and humanitarianism at its best. When's the last time you heard anything about this effort? Were you even aware of it?

For me, one of the many who lost nearly everything to that storm and suddenly had to say goodbye to a unique city and way of life she had loved for so many years, it's perfectly maddening to see the Clintons portrayed as America's most high profile, overnight racists, the villains in every cheap-trick melodrama going, the most crass couple in all 50 states. This is simply a gross injustice. Bill Clinton didn't have to lift a finger, fly on a single plane, raise a single dollar. But he did.

I am insulted, and deeply so, every time I hear Barack Obama defined in terms of victimization and struggle and discrimination. In the scale of things, the guy has had it easy, pure and simple. I am also insulted to the same depth when whites of whatever class are automatically exempted from the category of those who can know deep suffering.

One of the things that deeply frustrated me in the aftermath of Katrina was the racial myopia: to read the papers, including the New York Times - which did have the decency to stick with the story long after it had lost its media luster, you'd hardly have known that tens of thousands of white New Orleanians had undergone tremendous losses, including that of their very lives.

So Obama's race doesn't mean a fig to me, it doesn't even factor into the equation. What does factor in is simply this: who among these candidates actually cares about the welfare of the largest number of their fellow citizens, right across the color spectrum? Shoot me, but I simply don't believe it's Barack Obama.

You say: "No matter what criteria the Clintons specify to avoid talking about race...they are the ones that made this a contest about race."

I disagree here. As soon as Oprah entered stage left, the race became about race. This was well before the famous 'racist' remarks in SC, which were in actuality, remarks twisted like pretzels until they accommodated a racist mold.

"I'm clueless what the Clintons intend to tell black voters if they steal this election."

How about telling them that no one 'stole' the election? That would be a good start.

You say: "it seems race matters more to you more than you're willing to admit."

You might want to read the last sentence of my post again.

Race matters to me insofar as I saw bloc voting by race go a long way toward destroying New Orleans long before Katrina hit, and so it naturally concerns me.

Look, I'm not black, I have no idea what it feels like to be black. But I've voted for many black candidates in my life, so much so that separating out race from apparent qualifications is as natural as it can be for any American. Barack Obama is in no way a novelty for me. I'm probably sticking my neck out by saying this (what's new), but this sort of familiarity probably leads to equal opportunity b.s. detection.

Okay, now everybody can shoot me.

There was a column in this morning's paper by Charles Krauthammer about Obama's (demonstrable) history of ducking controversial issues which require reaching across the aisle. The NYTimes published a front-page profile of him yesterday which said essentially the same thing. So subtract the 'uniter' label, something which is now being done, and Obama looks like a much weaker candidate. My thinking is that the Republicans would rather face Obama, because this country is in a mess and is almost inevitably going to get cold about the new kid with the rather thin resume.