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.

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.

This looks to me like a knub of interesting things. First off, I wouldn't make overly grandiose claims about Unity or even the need for it. I think Obama himself is looking more for redefinition rather than assimilation with the Borg. A bipartisan consensus, a working majority is not Unity. There's clearly some folks on any side that don't want Unity. In the name of Unity we shouldn't attempt to kill off political diversity. I personally would like to continue to raise my freak flag high and live through my life the way I want to.

Yet, the only reason that Obama was able to frame the terms of the debate around hope and change at the beginning of this election cycle is because those ideas deeply resonated with the public. Obama didn't create this wave, he just showed up in time to surf it. Changing the process is not a false premise, and it is very concrete because people are reacting to how politics has been conducted for nearly eight years.

They are reacting against the political strategy of Karl Rove, his 51% percent strategy that divides the country against itself. It encourages and relies on one half of the population to demonize the other. This strategy was useful for perserving the power of the ruling majority, but not so good at advancing the interests of the American People. At this point in time, the US has some very large challenges on its plate, and a lot of people sense that a 51% buy in is not going to cut it. Nothing is going to get done, nothing is going to change, unless there is sufficient buy in. It doesn't require Unity. A supermajority would probably do.

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.

Thanks, all, for your thoughts. Obviously, I find the perspectives of Fester and CB convincing.

Kate, maybe we need to start at the beginning.

Is your objection to Obama that he's not who he says he is? Or that he's polarizing? Or what, exactly?

Before I begin to take seriously the sources you throw at me, I need some more context, e.g., what are you trying to illustrate, exactly?

I see you make a lot of appeals to authority, which frankly I'm naturally sceptical of, which is why I'm asking you to make the argument in your own words, then, if necessary, I can go to those sources for clarification. But in general, I'm more interested in your ideas than theirs.

Ok, you state that Obama's racial politics need to be repudiated.

Again, if I grant your premise, viz., that Obama is indeed practicing "racial politics," why do you believe it needs to be repudiated?

Are you arguing that Obama, and Obama alone (not Clinton and not McCain) practice "racial politics?"

Is it possible that both Obama and Clinton practice "racial politics?"

And if so, why is it necessary to repudiate the one and not the other?

Further, is it possible that Obama, if he practices "racial politics," does so in a fundamentally different way than Clinton, a way that's less insidious than you think?

(I'm dealing in hypotheticals here because the charges your making obscure the real issues for me. I'm trying to get to the bottom of things to better make a judgment about what you're talking about and where you're coming from. You seem to really be trying to tell us something and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but you have to work with me here.)