"The fact of the matter is highlighting race as an explanation for all negative causal effect on your campaign gives ammunition to not only your opponent but the lazy corporate media who flocks to it the way moth flocks to light. The unintended consequence is uggliness."

The unintended consequence is ugliness.

You say, "So, who gets the responsibility for this turn of phrase. Isn't it the height of arrogance to accuse Obama of something that the McBush had already put up on the net. What about the Obama "baby momma" comment?"

Yes, what about the "baby momma" comment?

On June 11, 2008, Fox News ran the header "Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama!" during a segment with anchor Megyn Kelly and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin.

ref: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/06/11/fox_obama/

On November 2, 2004 when Barack Obama won the election to become the US Senator for Illinois, Michelle Obama introduced him in this way:

"My baby's daddy Barack Obama. Yeah!"

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/02/se.06.html

However, I'm really unclear as to when the McCain campaign referred to her as "Obama's Baby Mama."

So who gets responsibility for this "turn of phrase"?

In another article in Salon, there’s a story about General Motors and how its policy of short term success over long term planning led to its current condition…….teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

I can’t help but think that the GM situation is the perfect metaphor for what’s wrong with our political situation today.

What is it in the American condition that the one time greatest corporation on earth, in the greatest country on earth, is now on life support?

And what is it in the American condition that at the most critical and perilous time in our country’s history our political system has handed us the two most unqualified candidates I can think of to lead us into the future?

The answer, in my opinion, lies in the breathtaking collapse of our secondary school educational system. An uneducated populace gave us the disaster known as George Bush and his neocons. And an uneducated populace is about to give us another disaster, either Barak Obama or John McCain.

p.s. Citing self serving NEA statistics has nothing to do with what truly intelligent (and educated) people think of when they think of “education.”

Obama definitely has a race card to play. Every time they define a criticism of Obama as racist or race-baiting they accomplish three important things: the focus shifts from the criticism to the motivation of the critic, the critic's credibility is diminished, and anti-racism voter's rally to Obama to oppose the use of race in the campaign. They were able to neutralize the value of Bill Clinton to his wife by turning one comment into a racist insult. Time after time, they spun words as racists and each time the speaker was of no more use the the Clinton campaign and more voter's flocked to Obama. No, not all voter's were motivated by racist-baiting, but if you look at the web, a lot of people still say that they could never support Clinton because of the supposed way she "used" race in the campaign, even though there is not a single incident from Clinton that is clearly racist. In order to accomplish this, they've had to redefine racism. Jackson Jr. twisted of Clinton's emotional display into an insult to black people, they dug up the archaic origin of "shuck and jive" and turned it into a racist insult, a lot people still try to claim that "arrogant" is a synonym for "uppity" and "kid" is the same as "boy".

I agree with Ms Walsh on the narrow assessment; Both camps are not necessarily playing a race card.

But there is still the obvious & ignored question... If Obama were not Black, would he be the Democratic Candidate?

You're not allowed to ask that question. Apparently, it's race-baiting, probably because there is no way to discuss this issue without highlighting his inexperience, so it Must Not Be Discussed. It is not likely that a first term senator with no leadership experience would be the Dem candidate for President no matter how charismatic he was. Maybe VP to build experience. They gave him a plum committee leadership (for which he did not hold meetings) and had him sign on for some prominent legislation. He was clearly being groomed for President. But he didn't want to wait to build his credentials. He was a symbol of "Unity", "Hope", and "Change". To at least some people, this meant unity between races, hope for equality, and change in the average skin shade of Presidents, based on editorials and web comments. There is a long history of Presidential qualifications to draw on, and they all have two major differences from Obama: They are not black and they all had more qualifications. Well, Lincoln had less political experience, but he was a reknowned orator and had his own law firm.

It's an interesting question, but is Obama really black? It's such a captivating question, and I'm sure you're quite a classy as well as clever fellow, but I have always thought Obama to be, a little more "high yellow."

Next...

Diana, Princess of Wales. Would she have been called a "white sexpot" too as Diana used her looks to her own advantage, for which I don't criticise her. Would there have been so many objections if Diana had been on the ad.? Would it have been seen as offensive although Diana, herself, claimed that she was "as thick as a plank". She was certainly not academic but, learning through experience, she became clever.

Those who keep telling us about Obama's Ivy League education can go on doing so until they're blue in the face. However, canny people should be able to recognise that all the tizzwazz is less about race than utter snobbery. How dare anyone equate those two "sexpots" to anyone who'd attended a top university although, during the anti-Clinton barrage, there were questions about how America could bear to see a woman President age! People were clobbered by the media with the message that Barack Obama is a sex-god (tremors down Mr. Matthew's wooden leg and the rest of the absurdity). Now the media-kissing has had to stop and the Obamaites are apoplectic.

It's so interesting to see hypocrisy and snobbery on a grand scale.