"What, me worry?"

It is often said that, much as maggots feast on roadkill, Democrats thrive on bad news. If today's Gallup polling (or that of Rasmussen) is to be believed, the bad economic news of the last few weeks has redounded to Barack Obama's benefit in his campaign against John McCain. Gallup now has Obama up by 50 percent to 42 percent, while McCain does slightly better in Rasmussen's data, with Obama at 50 percent to McCain's 44 percent.

For most readers of this blog, there is no good news to be gleaned from these results, as Obama has rarely held such a commanding lead over McCain. This is all particularly troubling, as it represents some of the first data from polls taken after the Friday's debate. As discussed elsewhere, my take was that McCain handed Obama his lunch last week; it appears that mine was the minority opinion, as the general consensus would suggest otherwise.

And yet, there is still concern in certain precincts of the Democratic Party. Earlier this month, Obama's African American vote director commented that there were eight million blacks not registered to vote. According to the Obama campaign's Rick Wade, "in the state of Ohio in 2004, we lost by two percent or 100,000 votes. There were 270,000 unregistered African Americans [in Ohio] ... So the African American vote can absolutely make the difference in this election.''

To be sure, there is cause for Wade and others to be concerned. It is beyond contradiction that African Americans are the Democrat's most loyal (if least influential) constituency, with blacks voting Democratic upwards of 90 percent. Of course the problem for liberals is that blacks have some of the lowest voter participation rates. Census Bureau data indicate that in the November 2004 election, 65.9 percent of Americans 18 and older were registered, with 58.3 percent of the population having voted. For whites, the rates were 67.9 percent registered and 60.3 percent voting. For blacks on the other hand, only 64.4 percent were registered, with 56.3 percent voting. Similar data exists for the November 2006 election.

And while there are efforts afoot to turn these percentages around in Ohio and elsewhere, it is hard to conceive that Democrats will be able to register eight million people before the various deadlines pass in each state. It's also difficult to believe that those African Americans who are at all likely to vote this November aren't already registered. For that matter, I suspect that for all practical purposes, the Obama camp has already counted the black vote in most liberal strongholds (while scaling back registration drives in other areas.)

To add to Obama's woes, if the Associated Press or Yahoo News is to be believed, race may play a deciding factor in Democratic voting, with some likely to decide to vote for McCain because he is white. A recent AP/Yahoo News poll (see AP story) indicates that "racial prejudice could cost Obama up to 6 percentage points this fall." For my part, I do not put much stock in this particular data set, as many of the results are contradictory. According to the AP, "[o]ne-fourth of white Democrats ascribed at least two negative attributes to blacks. But two-thirds of those Democrats said they will vote for Obama."

By my lights, this is a fairly transparent attempt to advance the longstanding liberal meme which posits that racism would be the only reason for an Obama defeat in November (see commentary from The Cafferty File, Time Magazine, Ruben Navarette, Jr. and Rev. Andrew M. Greeley). The goal is to cow Americans into voting against their best judgment in support of a candidate who would never have advanced as far as he has were it not for his ability to generate an almost hypnotic credulity. If there is any proof of a subliminal bigotry, is is evidenced by the fact that Obama is something of an affirmative action candidate, in as much as he has been given a massive benefit of the doubt that would be withheld from a similarly unqualified white.

In any event, this poll again confirms that the Democratic Party is ground zero for institutionalized racism. While some portion of Democratic voters will not support Obama based on his color, I suspect that most Republican voters would have no problem voting for a Clarence Thomas, a Condoleezza Rice or a Colin Powell, all of whom are eminently more capable than Himself. That said, this year our candidate is a white male, and we must needs redouble our efforts to make certain that he prevails in his contest.

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