US has moved beyond racist past

This headline impressed when I saw it in The Australian: US has moved beyond racist past. Then I read it and saw it was from The Wall Street Journal - and that had its won impressiveness. Considering the breadth and depth of Obama's wins last night, the following has even more interest.

"Sceptics will point out that these are Democratic primaries, in which the electorate is more liberal and, the thinking goes, more racially tolerant than in a general election. It is also true that blacks have had trouble being elected statewide in America. Obama is only the second black elected to the US Senate in the past 35 years, and only two blacks have been elected governor during the same period, or ever."

Yet the reasons for the political marginalisation of blacks are complicated and have less to do with lingering racism than with the unintended consequences of measures designed to combat racism.

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If Obama is the nominee, he will win a far smaller percentage of Republicans and conservatives than Steele did. But that is because he is a liberal Democrat, not because he is black. If anything, his race will be an asset, boosting turnout among blacks and attracting whites who like the idea of moving beyond race by electing a black president.

And those of us who like the idea of a President whose every utterance shows the limitations of his ideas and ability to think, who like the idea of a President who has the wit to handle a complex and nuanced world, who like the idea of a President who will not whine about how hard is the work of President, and mostly a President who thinks more highly of this country than does the vurrent occupant of the White House.