Why Obama Can't Shake John McCain

By: Earl Ofari Hutchinson

At first glance, it seems absolutely incredible that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama can't shake Republican rival John McCain. Yet, an AP poll calls the race a statistical dead heat. That's only one poll, of course, and the mishmash of other polls show Obama with either a respectable lead or a near rout of McCain. But that nagging AP poll hints at something that has bedeviled the Obama campaign from Day One, and that's the inability to put McCain away.

How could that happen? Obama has smashed every record in netting campaign contributions, gotten nearly every major newspaper endorsement, is fawned over by millions in other countries, was generally regarded as the clear winner in his three debates with McCain and draws record crowds to his campaign rallies. He is running against an aged, at times physically challenged opponent with a vice presidential mate with a phonebook of negatives that have made her a laughing stock in many circles. Both belong to a party which most voters blame for wrecking the economy and waging a costly, failed and flawed war.

The last Democratic presidential candidate to have so many pluses stacked up in his election bank against a GOP opponent was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. His opponent was the hapless, Depression-blamed Herbert Hoover. But Hoover at least was a sitting president. McCain isn't. The formula answer for McCain's staying power is that it's because Obama's black. From the moment he announced his candidacy in February 2007, race has been biggest X factor endlessly talked about and agonized over as the thing that could torpedo his chances. In countless surveys, African-Americans have virtually made it a mantra that that if he loses, it's because he's black. Certainly, there are enough closet and open bigots who won't vote for Obama purely on race. But that's not enough to explain why McCain still hangs around.

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