Under McCain-Feingold can a 527 legally make the statement set forth in the last paragraph?

This isn't a rhetorical question. I really don't know the answer.

Anyone?

Absolute garbage! You finger-wagging hatemonger, you.......

It is a really, really, really bad idea to make arguments about racism as a reason for Obama's situation at this point in the election. Save this until after it is over, and recognize that McCain's forces will use this type of argument to get votes if Obama supporters make it now.

If people can't look at the headlines and see that we need new, thinking people in charge, they truly should stay home on November 4th.

Good god. Can we not start with creating the Story that Obama is behind or having trouble because of his color. Good lord. Please when you know that simply isn't the case why run it out there?

Thinking that Obama can only lose because of racism is another manifestation of the head-in-the sand attitude of so many on our side. It's a disease to which Obama's early adopters are especially prone.

One of the huge miscalculations of he Obama campaign and the Obama supporters was the calculation that everybody else would, once they got a good look at the man, be as susceptible to Obama's somewhat mesmerizing charms as his early adopters were.

That was always an illusion. The persistence of Hillary during the primary campaign was in large measure attributable to her correct diagnosis that there was a limit to Obama's reach.

Both his campaign and his early supporters, however, seemed largely blind to these limits. Even after they got trounced despite outspending the Clinton campaign by huge margins, blanketing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio with advertisement, traveling the breadth and width of such states they still seemed not to realize that the Obama had peaked, that the hypnotism had worn off, and that if they held on to win the primary, they would be in for a really tough fight -- since the new audience was bound to be an even harder sell than the old audience of people predisposed to vote for some democratic or other.

What does all this have to do with racism, you may impatiently ask?

Of course, there are very many racists in America. The hardest core racists seldom vote democratic. Moderately racists folks, who don't like to think of themselves as racists, but still have some lingering racial condescension in their hearts of hearts sometimes do vote democratic, despite their sotto voce racism. But when they do, it's almost always for a Bill Clinton type candidate with whom they can identify and whom they trust enough not to cave in to what they perceive as unreasonable black demands.

Part of Bill Clinton's genius was to win votes from both such moderately racialized whites and African Americans at the same time. He did so by trying to promote programs that could be so as universally appealing and not part of any racial spoils system a la leftist democrats of old.

But back to Obama and the limits of his appeal. I don't doubt that there is some racialized resistance to him. Even if he were not African American, there would still be such resistance. After all, despite his own protestation to the contrary, he's a pretty standard issue left-leaning democrat -- both in terms of policy and in terms of cultural background and in terms of just the way he carries himself.

But of course besides being a pretty much standard issue democratic lefty member of the knowledge elite, if not the monied elite, he aslo happens to be an African American. So he's got a double whammy.

No doubt about it. Race and racialized thinking plays a role here.

But -- and here's the big but -- I still insist that an equally large part of the problem is the truly vast overestimation of the Obama's appeal on grounds having nothing to do with race or racialized consciousness.

The problem is that once you get past the winning personality, the uplifting personal narrative, the sheer eloquence and obvious brilliance -- and this is a lot, not doubt -- it turns out that there really isn't a whole lot of the stuff that one typically finds in winning presidential candidates -- either of the insider variety (like Bush I) or of the outsider variety (like Reagan or Clinton).

It's not like he came to national prominence because of some massive fight he took on at some previous level of government that showed great grit or determination or willingness to get scarred in the service of some greater cause. It's not like he's carried off some major league shake-up of, well, anything. It's not even like he's been there for some beleaguered constituency time after time when, say, it was unpopular to do so.

He was against the war early on, to be sure. But did he become the major spokesman for the antiwar movement, swimming against the tide of go along get along conformism that dominated our body politic in the wake of 911? Hardly.

Except for the scars Obama has incurred in the current political campaign -- first against Clinton and now against McCain - ask yourself what real scars can Obama point to as a testament to hard battles fought well, win or lose, damn the consequences?

I really don't mean to deny that Obama has serious appeal. But I also think those who were enamored of him early on and got on board and gave all that money, failed to appreciate the limits of that appeal and so failed to appreciate how tough a fight it would be to get him into the presidency.

I think a fair case that Obama is running for the presidency maybe a few years to early. How many years? Well, it's not really a matter of years -- it's a matter of great fights. He's at least one great fight short of demonstrating some things that might broaden his appeal.

Or so it seems to me.

And I think that his lack of "readiness" for lack of a better term is really what gives lots of people pause, even people who aren't necessarily racists.

That has always been the elephant in the room from from day one of the primaries that no one wanted to discuss. Thanks to you and MJ Rosenberg it's uncomfortably on the table. The McCain Campaign understands that race is a huge factor in this election and they are using subtle tricks to keep it front and center i.e., Obama Waffles. The Clinton Campaign understood the influence of race on those white rural voters.

Liberal America is light years ahead of the rest of this country in terms of race, but Liberal America is not the majority. There are more red states than blue. The Liberal blogosphere and the reactionary Right live in bubbles.

People don't like discussing race, they'd rather not even think about it. It's not just an American hang up, it's global. When it is brought up Todd identified the common reaction, "... you're met with an awkward silence, a gulp, a stare, a wall." Many people won't even admit to themselves that race is the reason they won't vote for Obama. The big excuse was Obama's lack of experience until Palin came in with less.

I'd like to see a 527 run an ad as Todd described. but I doubt any will. It's that elephant that no one wants to talk about.

this article makes me sad for several reasons.

first of all, it underscores the fact that the Democratic Party JUST DOESN'T GET IT when it comes to winning presidential elections. if the party really believes that it is Obama's skin color that's the issue, then they're just not connected with reality.

this great "Uncomfortable Minority" who agrees with Obama on the issues but is scared of black people--I submit that that constituency does not exist. for instance, I dare you to find any people who support Colin Powell's stances on the issues but are scared of him because he's black.

what Obama's problem is--what the Dems' problem is and always is--is that he's too liberal. (Obama has the added problem of being too full of himself, something that he shares with John Kerry and Al Gore, among other also-rans.)

this election has become a referendum on America's "commitment to diversity," as they say at the university where I work. and that's a shame too; it shouldn't because it isn't.