KEY POINTS:
No one at this four-day Democratic Obamafest in Denver would ever think to say it out loud. History is against this man. The dirty truth is, so far, most of the black men who have ever served in the White House were serving hors d'oeuvres.
Now that the
latest polling numbers put John McCain and Barack Obama neck and neck, did anyone really believe that the candidacy of one untested, pretty-talking lawyer with a fancy degree, a middle name of Hussein and a last name that rhymes with the United States' most reviled terrorist was going to be a cakewalk?
The White House is no Little House on the Prairie. For 200 years the United States was built on the broken backs of black men. Now you expect America to feign colour blindness and entrust the highest office in the land to one skinny, cappuccino-coloured freshman senator? To invest in a man they'd never heard of until four years ago when he spoke at this same Democratic National Convention and everyone asked, "Osama who?"
Talk about the audacity of hope. What about the audacity of history?
This race won't be won or lost on the opinion pages of the world's newspapers that are already anointing Obama as heir and chief. This race will be decided when real-life Desperate Housewives step into that private polling booth and the world finds out how much dirt remains under America's fingernails.
This week it's been the smallest moments that reveal the biggest fissures. Moments like when an Obama staffer from Denver told me they had an "N word tally" posted on the office wall. The tally keeps growing as campaign volunteers canvas voters by phone and respondents use the word and hang up.
It comes when a dear friend mentions that his brother-in-law in Iowa, a bright man, is going to vote for McCain because he "still can't bring himself to vote for a black guy". There's not much you can say to move the cement in a sentence like that.
Pollsters are madly trying to quantify what number to put on racism. Good luck. Various polls range from 5-9 per cent of respondents who admit they feel uncomfortable voting for a black man.
But the story gets a bit muddier when the question is made less personally revealing. When asked if respondents had friends who wouldn't vote for Obama because of his colour, that number went up to 19 per cent, according to a New York Times poll. Translation: I'm not willing to admit out loud that I'm a racist but it's certainly more comfortable telling you my neighbours are.
The million-dollar question is, how many people are going to say one thing and vote another?
There's reason for the Obama campaign to be nervous - what's now known as the Gantt Effect. In 1990, Harvey Gantt, a black senatorial candidate in North Carolina, was up by 8 points on election day against an Old South white incumbent, Jesse Helms. Verbal exit polls even reported he was the winner by a large margin.
But behind that white curtain, voters told a far different story. They told their truth. The black candidate actually lost by a whopping 8 points.
Yes, Obama will overwhelmingly take the black vote, with 89 per cent saying they support him, but blacks usually vote Democratic anyway. John Kerry got 88 per cent of the black vote in 2004, according to CNN exit polls.
This week, as the giant live image of Obama flashed across the neon blue convention stage to cheers, Michelle Obama gave a beautifully measured speech reminding voters that Obama is both the "same man she met 19 years ago" and the embodiment of the American Dream. That he embodied the American mythology that a poor, mixed-race kid can rise up from the force of his intellect and talent to reach any mountaintop; that perhaps today he can be judged in those familiar words of Martin Luther King Jnr, "not by the colour of his skin but by the content of his character".
It is a compelling tale. But somewhere between America's fairytale and her uglier reality is a candidate who walks a tightrope alone.
Obama is both penalised and cheered when he even makes reference to the fact that his face doesn't look like "those other presidents on the dollar bill".
This presidential fight will be much more complex than just a referendum on race.
But whether fair or not, if Obama loses, his candidacy will be seen by the world as a reality check on the damaged American narrative it has always known.
And if Barack Obama does pull it off, it will be because America wants to believe in Michelle Obama's perhaps prescient words that, "This time we will listen to our hopes, instead of our fears."
