Obama is black and you must vote for him.

That's a rather obvious statement. And even though his mother was white, he has self-identified himself as black. Nothing wrong with that and it is just another obvious fact, but I want to get rid of the "half white" arguments.

He also was Muslim. He was identified as such by both his fathers and went to a Muslim school. That he converted to, if not main stream Christianity, at least the Black Liberation Theology sect of it is a fact. I mention this to set aside the arguments that he is Muslim.

He has a Muslim name. And if it is not "Muslim," it is certainly a very common name in Muslim societies and culture, just as Paul Richard White is an "American" name and would be recognized as such in any Muslim country/society or culture, although I doubt Richard could be elected to anything... (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

He also associated with self identified terrorists, attended a Black Liberation Theology Church and made enough gaffes on the campaign trail that most candidates would have been sunk. I refer to his "57 states" and "clinging to their religion and guns" statements. And even more, we had his various declarations of socialism both in the campaign and before.

None of it stuck. It wasn't that he was the "teflon" candidate, it was that he was the "we know but don't care" candidate. He adroitly played the race card himself by declaring that "they" will tell you I am "different" "don't look the same as those guys on a $5.00 bill..." That worked so well that the Left claimed that even mentioning his association with Ayers was racist..and they were taken seriously.. And even though he was on video declaring that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela and North Korea, his followers would argue that he didn't say it... and get away with it.

And perhaps his master stroke was telling the world that we shouldn't call him Hussein because that reminded people of Muslims and he wasn't a Muslim... And no one pointed out that, if calling him Hussein was a problem, wouldn't Barack Obama also yield the same problem? And that morphed quickly into calling him Hussein was racist, even though no race is involved with members of the Islamic faith.

Some have noted that he received 95% plus of the black vote, and that is factual. But in that he is not all that different than John Kerry was in 2004. But what must be remembered is that although the percentage is close, in raw numbers the black vote was much larger than in 2004. And then when you look at the primaries, Democrat against Democrat, he still received around 95% of the black vote. Without race trumping gender, which it always will on the Left, it might very well be Madame Present-elect.

But even including the increased registration of blacks he still required white votes. And he got them, as he did the black vote, because, first and foremost, he was a black candidate. Because of that all his short comings were not only forgiven, they weren't even allowed to be discussed.

What we had there was the flowering of twenty plus years of the Leftist America Bad crowd's continual insistence that a black man could not be elected and if you voted against one you were a racist. His background, his lack of experience, his obvious socialist/Marxist leanings made no difference, just as the fact that McCarthy was correct, there were communists in the government, made no difference. To be acceptable you had to condemn McCarthy and now find Hussein wonderful, or at least so in public.

The amazing thing now is watching the pundits all try to guess how he will govern. They all talk of the "center" and how he shouldn't "repeat" Bill Clinton's mistake of trying to do too much too soon. What nonsense. He has started on the Left and he will go farther to the Left, all the time claiming that he is only doing what needs to be done.

His hands will be as clean as any Chicago Politician.

It is the ward heelers who do the dirty work.

In the leftie blogs and on talk radio you can start to see and hear complaints that he isn't moving fast enough with "change."

Be patient little ones, be patient.

Just as his race made no difference to most of those who voted against him, race will continue to have an effect on many of those who voted for him.

The question that is yet to be answered is how far they will support unpopular policies before he becomes what I and many others see him as..... just another man.