Putting Bradley Behind Us

The historic nature of last night's result is unquestionable. But in turn it questions the conventional wisdom that race is a huge barrier in American life, at least as it pertains to leadership.

The New York Times this morning led with a 5-column banner headline: "Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory." I may be going semantic on this, but the headline, IMHO, misses the real point - that the racial barrier wasn't really there at all. It melted away over the last 40 years, the inevitable result, day by day, of 40 years of legal reform and cultural integration.

Turns out, the polls were right. They didn't need to be handicapped by 5 or 10 points, by the notion that people may tell you they're voting for a black candidate, but in the privacy of the voting booth their internal racist impulses compel them to do differently.

Obama ran against a viable candidate. True, he didn't win the white vote, but he won key segments of it; he won seniors, and he won Hispanic voters 2-1. If a black candidate, even one who had a racist preacher as his spiritual mentor, can attract a majority of white voters with his rhetoric, skills, and positions, doesn't that say that voters care more about the candidate's substance than the color of his skin?

A piece from one of Australia's leading newspapers makes the same point -- and a larger one, that the left's hyper-critical view of US culture as racist and imperialist is and has always been distorted.

Certainly, depending on where we live or work, racism may be a larger or smaller barrier to achievement for the rest of us.

But can we at least put the Bradley Effect, and its suggestion that deep in the hearts of most white people lurks a racist devil, to bed?