While I don’t disagree with the spirit what you have said above, Rick, I do think that the results you point out in relation to the candidacy and campaign of Obama is more akin to white teenagers buying gangsta rap cds, than an actual transcendence of racial issues.
Obama’s campaign preys on the naive, the inexperienced and blindly idealistic. He has, what we would call on the street, “a good rap.”
His campaign also appeals to a desire to “be a part of history.” Like the youth of Germany tearing down the Berlin Wall, the youth of this country can be vapidly drawn to “being a part of something.” What do you think are the drivers for all of these socially-based, rapidly growing (but mostly intelligent-thought-free) websites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc.? Obama’s campaign is MySpace for Politics…vapidity wrapped in “unity.”
In the end, Obama is merely an icon of an unrealistic Utopian hope.
All of those issues aside, Obama represents a real danger for this country. Because there is so little substance behind him, he is the perfect tool for special interests to control if he were to actually gain the office. The naivety that surrounds him will be (properly) perceived as weakness.
