The color of our skin, the color of our eyes
I took the words below from today's NYTimes. Do these findings mean that we have gone beyond race? That we have become a country where people are no more judged by the color of their skin than by their body weight, height, or the color of their eyes? I'd like to think so.
If this has in fact happened it's thanks to Barack Obama who conducted himself throughout the recent campaign as a man, and not as a black man. He seemed to know intuitively that he alone by his words and actions could make his black color, if not irrelevant, peripheral to the race.
The voters of course were always well aware that Obama would be our first African-America president, that he, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha would make up the very first black first family, but this never became a major issue during the race. Only now when the race is over do we think of it, and smile happily at the thought.
Mr. Obama lost white voters by 12 points, but that is the same margin Al Gore lost them by in 2000 and better than the 17-point margin John Kerry
lost them by in 2004. He also lost among white men by a 16-point
margin, 57 percent to 41 percent. But again, that is a better result
for the Democrat among this group compared with 2004 (when Mr. Kerry
lost white men by 25 points) and 2000 (when Mr. Gore lost white men by
24 points.)
That trend carried through in some key states.
While Mr. Obama did not carry white voters in Indiana, North Carolina,
Ohio, Pennsylvania or Virginia, for example, he lost them by smaller
margins than Mr. Kerry did in 2004.
