You say: "No system is perfect, the Senate held up civil rights reforms until LBJ slammed it through, and I believe the maelstrom of public support was a major factor in the Senate Iraq war vote."

Thank you for the voice of reason here. Yes, LBJ DID slam the civil rights agenda through - just as Hillary Clinton posited (and was subsequently gutted for so doing, though she spoke a plain truth). And yes, her vote on the Iraq resolution undoubtedly reflected the sentiments of a great many voters in the state which took the brunt of 9/11.

I am intrigued by your posts and admire your sincerity, but when you talk about Obama's ability to 'unite', you are sadly glossing over the many millions who see him as anything but a uniter. You might want to take a look at this essay in NoQuarter (and the reader comments which follow), because it reflects EXACTLY what a whole lot of voters are feeling. For many of us, Obama has turned out to be disastrously divisive, an almost certain death knell for Democratic hopes this November. Expressing this belief is heresy in the blogosphere and is sure to draw fire from Obama believers, thus serving to increase the divisiveness in question. And so we go round and round in a vicious, ever widening circle.

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/31/is-barack-obama-the-george-wallace-of-the-left/#more-2008

You say: "But let's grant your premise, that Obama's not a "uniter." The question then becomes whether McCain and Clinton are more unifying, and then the question becomes, unifying to what end?"

The question all along has been whether McCain and Clinton are more (or less) unifying, because that's how Obama framed the terms of debate at the outset (that and 'hope' and 'change'). This in itself was an entirely false premise - something more in the nature of a crusade rather than a political campaign meant to deal with concrete issues, but initially at least, Obama got away with it. And that's where all the trouble started.

BTW, I'm not clear as to why you chose not to read the NoQuarter essay. It expresses far more eloquently and comprehensively than I am able to, the deep unease and distrust which Obama has inspired in so many.

You say: "Why should I bother to read the rest of the article when the very first thing I see is total garbage?"

Perhaps if you had read further, you would have noted that the writer also cites Sheila Jackson Lee, Harold Ford, and Nelson Mandela.

You would also have read this:

'Obama’s racial politics are not the overt racism of George Wallace standing at a school door and proclaiming “segregation now, segregation forever.” It is the more odious kind; it’s the accusation of racism when none existed, the implication, the dog-whistle, and the double entendre. It is perhaps more divisive and hateful because it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself from the accusation. Bill Clinton really was saying that Obama’s position on the Iraq War was a “fairly tale.” It really did take Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson to pass Civil Rights legislation.

'As Sean Wilentz writes in The New Republic regarding Obama’s use of race: “A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the `race card’ were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students.”

'The absurdity of the accusation regarding the Clintons’ alleged use of race brings into relief Obama’s repugnant racial strategy. In Democratic primaries and in the General Election, Clinton clearly would want to have as many black supporters as possible.

'To paraphrase Senator Ted Kennedy speaking of George Wallace, Obama’s racial politics not only need to be repudiated, they need to be defeated. As Democrats, if we are to be congruent with who we say we are, we must wash the stain of racial politics from our party forever.

'I could no more vote for Obama than I could vote for George Wallace, and the reasons are much the same.'

All I can add is, amen.

Thank you for the long, heartfelt post. I'd like to respond at length tonight, but I'm dead tired and it's very late. All I can say at the moment is that I spent 30 years living in New Orleans, a city with a much larger black middle class than the rest of America has ever been aware of. So of course I'm quite aware that the similarities among the members of any socioeconomic class of whatever race, in a given culture, are much greater than are any differences. This makes the sudden and dramatic racial split in this primary all the more unsettling and in the long run, that much more unfortunate. Obviously, I don't lay this split at the Clintons' door, but rather at Obama's. I see this not only as a tragedy, but a moral failing which is making it nearly impossible for me to contemplate ever voting for Obama.

You say: "Oh, and just because Kate is a racist is to me not sufficient reason to cease trying to find common ground."

I am extremely disappointed in you for writing the above. I am a racist ONLY as defined by some of those posting on this site, those so filled with faux virtue that I sometimes want to scream. I know full well who I am, I know my faults and shortcomings. Racism is most definitely not one of them, so whale away, all of you. This will not change my awareness of certain realities, no more than it will change that of millions of other decent people in this country being subjected to the typically damaging, acidic intellectualism which permeates the far left. I have the courage of my convictions and I will continue to stand by them.