Don't expect a landslide yet

Since Obama's poll numbers have been trending up recently, some political commentators (Republican and Democratic) have already predicted an Obama victory in November. But let's not go there yet. I think it's going to be close until the end.

Why? David Gergen summed it up pretty well on CNN after Tuesday's debate: Obama is black. Period.

Kudos to Gergen for pointing out that there is still a lot of racism in America, even if it's not overt. Analysts have differed over whether the Bradley effect is still operable, but there's no question that a lot of voters still don't like Obama, or don't feel that they can trust him, because he is "Other." Here are some examples. And McCain/Palin's explicit strategy in the last few weeks of the campaign will continue to try to exploit that tendency (thus the "Hussein" references, the "Who's the real Obama?", the "pals with terrorists" crap).

The best way to overcome this is to keep working, and celebrate on November 5 that America is better than this.