Unlike Roger I thought Obama’s speech was pretty strong. No doubt I’ll vote for him in the fall.

The Democrats need to be very careful about Obama, however. Does he believe he’s the beneficiary of affirmative action or not? If not, it puts the lie to claims that everything in America is about race. If so, do the children of Kenyans and white Kansans reared in Hawaii by white grandparents need affirmative action? More than the children of Mississippi sharecroppers—because that’s who he edged out.

I had a Hawaiian roommate in college and lots of Hawaiian friends. Not one had ever seen an African American before coming to the mainland to go to school. So Obama grew up almost completely isolated from African American society.

Don’t get me wrong—I like Obama and believe he’ll make a good senator for Illinois (certainly better than Carole Mosely Braun). But Obama’s achievements are his own and his success calls the conventional orthodoxies about racial politics in this country into question.