I can't seem to find a good link, but yesterday I was in the car and forced to listen to NPR, and they had a pollster on who talked about the Harold Ford loss in TN and the white vote. His point was that while in the polls, many white voters said they would vote for Ford or a black candidate in general, the election proved otherwise, and Harold's race was a major factor in his loss. I think it's important to realize that race is still an important consideration in elections, and that it will be the biggest negative factor for Obama.

You probably know how I much I dig Tom Schaller, and his most recently discussion with the FDL gang just shows how much cool, class and intellect he's got. I can hardly believe such a lucid mind is employed by the Academe /I keed, I keed/.

His key point is pretty simple: racist people in the South are the reason Republicans have locked it up in recent years, and no amount of pandering to them will make them vote Democratic. Obviously not all Southerners are racist, but so long as there are enough of them in Southern states to form a voting bloc, the South will remain Republican.

The discussion over there hit all the important points about strategy, so I won't repeat them here. But I had a couple of questions that I didn't get to ask, having been on the phone when it took place. What do you think: are the DLC and a large group of the Democratic consulting class racist?