With two weeks to go in this election, things are looking pretty good for Barack Obama.  He's up in the states that matter and is on the verge of winning some states that haven't voted Democrat in a presidential election in decades.  He has done well to warn his operatives and supporters not to coast to the finish line.  The last thing he wants anyone to do is become complacent.  That can hand the election to John McCain.  But all things remaining the same from here on, all signs point to an Obama win.  Thank your god.

But as a Pennsylvanian, as an American, I worry about racism.  The Bradley effect, as it is called, is still a very real possibility in states that have a long history of clandestine racism, that is, the kind of racial antipathy that looms beneath the surface and manifests itself in more hidden, more seemingly innocuous ways.  When many think of racism the first thought often turns to slavery in the South, Jim Crow in the South.  After all, those were the most obvious examples of this great scourge because they were always so apparent and in-your-face.  But historically many regions outside the American South have been no less racist in mind and in deed.  And because that racism has to the casual observer seemed more subtle, it has often been more dangerous.

I come from one of those "secretly" racist states.  Yes, Pennsylvania has a long history of anti-racism, from the birth of the movement for abolition among Quakers after the American Revolution to the fiery Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens, who, in the 1860s, fought hard to help redefine the meaning of American freedom and to accord African Americans full citizenship and civil rights.  That history, however, is overshadowed by the fact that southcentral PA has the largest concentration of hate groups in the nation.  Pennsylvania, according to sociologist James Loewen, has the largest number of suspected "sundown towns" in the nation, more than the over 400 confirmed such towns in Illinois. 

(Sundown towns are communities outside the traditional South that between the years 1880 and 1920 used numerous pretexts to justify the expulsion of their African American citizens.  Black Americans were not permitted in these towns after sundown.  Many of these communities still have few if any African Americans living within their town limits.)

Many of you watched the video clip of Palin supporters in Johnstown, PA posted here at TPM.  That's just the tip of the iceberg here in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and elsewhere.  I currently reside in southcentral PA where the communities west of Harrisburg, on the West Shore of the Susquehanna, are commonly referred to as being located on the "white shore."  My father, who has done some consulting work for a local union in western PA, relates that even though the union itself has endorsed Obama every person - and these are decent people too - he has talked to in that union has said openly that they simply cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man.  His neighbors have expressed the same sentiment.  Governor Rendell attested to the same phenomonon during the primary season, as did Congressman Jack Murtha just last week.  Many of these people would get upset if they were called racist, but nonetheless harbor racist attitudes even if they're ashamed of the label.

When voters go into the voting booth, will the Bradley Effect come into play?  This is the unknown of this election.  Take race out of the equation and I am convinced Obama wins and wins big.  Add racism and I'm a little less sure but just as hopeful.  And if Obama loses, we can certainly look at voter registration purges and other real voter fraud going on throughout the country.  But it would be naive and a big mistake to assume race had nothing to do with it.  I pray that Obama is able to jump this last hurdle and land safely on the other side.  If he does, it will be one more small but significant step towards marginalizing the racists of this country.