"I know it sounds stupid," he says taking a long drag from his Maverick cigarette, "but Barack Hussein Obama?"

Yup. It sounds stupid all right.

How does a story like this get written. Somebody sits back and says to himself "Gosh, Obama's so wonderful, how can it possibly be that people are not deciding to vote for him?" And then, with the narrative in mind, the reporter goes out and fills up his story with the people he's looking for.

Why are stories like this always written about Democratic candidates, and why do they always take place in rural America? Is rural America some kind of fantasy destination for reporters? It seems to me, from a demographic perspective, that far fewer people live in rural America than in towns and cities, and that is true even in "red states".

I hope at some point, we'll have reporters go around cities and ask the hard questions. "Why is it that McCain cannot get any 'traction' among black, urban voters?"

Why do these narratives always come down to identifying rural, white Americans as "typical" Americans? They really aren't.

And yeah, somebody who thinks a Semitic middle name is a good reason to vote against somebody is a good argument for cancelling this democratic experiment altogether.

Obama's modest, single-mom upbringing

He wasn't. He was raised by his mother and stepfather, then his grandparents. Part of the reason why he seems unauthentic to some is because parts of his background are made up.

The biggest issue with Obama's race will be in polling. It always throws polling off, sometimes to a Black candidates benefit, but usually not. This makes it much harder for Obama's team to properly allocate resources.

Is North Carolina still in play, hard to tell because polling is so wide, and how accurate is it. It's these kinds of decisions that will most affect his campaign in terms of race.

Unfortunately, his skin color will cost him some votes, but not being able to tell where and to what extent is the real issue.

do people think our president should be a dumb jackass just like them?

What the hell is wrong with people??

And, can we please stop saying that people like this aren't racist? They may not wear white pointy hats or burn crosses on front lawns or go out on lynches, but they are ignorant fucking racists and don't deserve the interviews and attention they are getting. They deserve a swift kick in the ass.

I am just SICK and TIRED of Small-Town America.

Or is it Ignoramus America? Why are "small town" and "ignorant" often used (or implied) together? There are just as many dunces in cities. Watch Jay Leno ask someone on the street where the Pacific Ocean is (in LA), and you're likely to get a great big DUUUUUHHHH...

That said, I am TIRED of worrying about the bigot-ridden parts of our country. I am SICK of reading about the opinions of people who only read one newspaper (the one with the aliens on the cover), who don't know anything that is said outside their clique of KKK sons and daughters (and maybe Rush Limbaugh). If this country is going to let itself be dragged around by these anti-thinkers, we deserve to have our asses handed to us by the Chinese.

"While George W. Bush received the same Harvard benediction as Obama,"

Not true. The Bushes (H.W. and W.) went to Yale.

What a tragedy that poorly educated, working-class, white, small-town Americans will reject a truly smart, capable, good-hearted, visionary leader like Obama simply because they are trapped by prejudices that rule them almost like daemonic possession! So despite their dissatisfaction with Bush, they may end up electing a team that is even MORE conservative than Bush, which means NO AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR MILLIONS, tax breaks for the rich at a time when the country is being bankrupted and the economy ruined by huge war debts in Iraq and Afghanistan, with more to come in Iran, because McCain-Palin are total war-mongering puppets of the neocon servants of Likud Israel. These poor fools are going to vote for at least four more years of catastrophe at home and abroad, and even more economic misery, and much higher gas prices, for them and their families. It's sad to watch ignorant people destroy their country they supposedly love, and themselves, with such stupid politics.

OK, let me get this straight. 90~95% of black people can vote for Obama and it's not racist. Yet you feel a need to travel all over the U.S. to find whites who might be turned off by his color...after he won in lilly-white Iowa, and is garnering respectable white numbers even in polls now?

How about traveling some heavily black places and doing a report on blacks who won't vote for McCain just because he's white. I have a pretty strong hunch you're going to find there are now a lot more blacks acting as racists toward whites, than there are whites acting as racists toward blacks.

Of course, that wouldn't be PC to do such a study, now would it?

What kind of black man is Barack Obama? I'll tell you.

Remember that guy on that comedy that was the most popular show in America about 20 years back?

Before your time? OK, you know that Jello Pudding Pops guy?

Everyone knows an educated middle class black guy who speaks standard American dialect (at least as well as they do).

His name's Bill g**d*** Cosby.

I'm no Pollyanna, but this article -- while not wrong -- overstates the case.

He's a 'backer farmer from the knobs, lives on land in KY that my mom's family settled back before it was a state. His feelings: "I know he's a N****r and a Muslim, but I'm still gonna have to vote Obama. He's the only one who gets it."

So, yeah. There's room for "complicated." And my uncle isn't stupid. He is managing the cognitive dissonance of competing narratives, competing demands, competing needs. Ultimately, he's making the choice that makes the most sense to him. The way to win votes amongst people like my uncle is not to wring our hands and bemoan their lack of sense - it's to try, as best we can, to explain our own reasons for voting as we do, and to listen to their questions about and reasons for voting as they do. Then, if we can't reach agreement, at least we can share some sense of understanding. Maybe. Hopefully.

It's time to end the culture wars, and the politics of division that feed on them. That's one of the major reasons that I support Obama. If I can't walk that talk myself, then I might as well withdraw from this election cycle, too.