"Is America ready for a black president?"

I mean, for fuck's sake.

Why not just ask the REAL question -- are a plurality of voting Americans too racist to vote for a black president?

We both tolerate and enable willful ignorance by couching the issue in such safe language.

Instead of asking why our schools are failing, why not just ask if elementary students are ready for two and two to equal four?

Instead of asking why sexual assault runs rampant on many college campuses and military installations, why not just ask if rapists are ready to stop raping?

Does no one crack a history book anymore? When has progress in America come simply because people were "ready" for it? Slavery was ended by an executive order. Civil rights reform was imposed at gunpoint. We live in a country full of laziness and inertia. People are ready for something when you TELL them they're ready for it. Wait around for their approval and you'll be waiting forever.

It is interesting to read about all these people who can't vote for Obama because they don't know enough about him and he's still a mystery, yet are more than happy to be supporting Sarah Palin.

Obama is only a mystery and a closed book to those who have willfully extended their ignorance.

I'm growing a little tired of Democrats falling for the "psyche job" every four years. This board is infected with Republican Trolls with the specific task of depressing democrats with their phony "Hillary was a better candidate" garbage.

Let me address three of the items mentioned in both the letters and comments.

HILLARY WOULD HAVE LOST THIS RACE BEFORE IT BEGAN

The reason Hillary lost the primary and support among superdelegates was because of her lack of leadership, her underestimating her rival, the lack of financial discipline within the campaign, and her expectation that by Super Tuesday, she was going to be coronated the Democratic nominee. Barack's support was more passionate, as proven by his record fundraising numbers, attendance at his events, and those folks showing up at the caucuses and polls. He also pulled a wide demographic range of support. So there. The same folks in these small towns who won't vote for Barack think Hillary murdered Vince Foster. Much of her 18 million votes were cast by Republicans wanting to create mischief in the Democratic primary. No you say...why aren't THEY paying down her debt. Now, no more talk of Hillary.

Even if we accept the premise that people should vote for candidates who are "like them," I would suggest that neither McCain nor Palin qualify. Both of them have lived their entire lives, since birth, in bubbles that are far different from the reality experienced by the typical American.

As an admiral's son and grandson, McCain grew up and lived the first four decades of his life in the military bubble. This may be an admirable thing to do, but it is nevertheless an extremely insular subculture. When you're a career military man, or your father is, you socialize with other military people and their families on military bases. You don't stay long enough in any one place to form any community attachments outside that. The military is your only real community.

From there he moved quickly to the congressional bubble. Enough said about that.

Palin's case is in some ways more extreme. She was born in Alaska, the most backwater of backwater states, and lived her entire life there, except for four years attending college in Idaho. Nothing could be more foreign to the experience of the average American -- it's a state more than twice the size of Texas, with one tenth the population of Dallas/Ft Worth. A substantial number of people live off the land there. It's a state with seemingly endless natural resources. A state where instead of paying taxes, the government pays you just for living there. And a state where it's possible to make a lot of money in blue-collar occupations that don't require much formal education.

I must say that if I were a struggling blue-collar worker this would concern me a little. The rest of the country is not Alaska. Blue-collar workers in Cleveland are not building lakefront homes like Palin's. Does she understand this? Since the day he was born the roof over McCain's head has been provided by the U.S. government, or his spectacularly wealthy wife. Furthermore, his military career was handed to him on a silver platter, as was his political career. How could he possibly know anything about what average people go through finding employment in the private sector?

I'm not sure any of the above is all that important, actually. But it's interesting to me how oddly selective people are when they choose to see some candidates as "different."

Yeah, yeah. Republicans don't fight for the urban vote. They only win when Dems can't get the majority of the rural vote. This is why Bill Clinton won. This is why HRC was a good choice for the nomination. But we as Dems, are in denial about that.

I live in a town of about 75,000; not small but still undergoing the transition to the 21 century. Some people in their 40s & 50s still use pejorative terms that I hadn't heard for years. My guess is that some of it is ignorance, some of it is fear of the unknown and some is the cultural environment.

I've been to Manistique and other small towns on Superior's S shore. People weren't rude or offensive but they were cautious toward me & I'm white. I can see how they might relate to a charismatic black man who wants to run their country. My suspicion is that they want to know about Mr. Obama's religion, other details of his personal life and what he is going to do for them rather than his views on dealing with a new aggressive Russia. The former is familiar territory, the latter may be poorly understood or deemed irrelevant.

Since day 1 small towns have been fed all the bad news about non-whites and very little about what they have accomplished. Integration has a long way to go.

Mr. Hoyle, you are right, Obama must connect with the little people! He must also convince the people of his socio-economic class and wealthy that he is not a threat to their status and way of life.