The McCain forces have accused the Democratic candidate of injecting race into the campaign. That's silly. The man is black. His candidacy is indivisible from that fact, given the history and pathology of this country. When Senator Obama said that he did not look like the guys on our currency and that his opponents were likely to portray him as Other, he was stating the obvious. Perhaps he was also pointing out that, despite efforts to maintain the status quo by generations of conservatives, this remains a nation so progressive that an American from a group once held as personal property could become president. The suggestion of something untoward was pandering to stereotypes and fear. Senator McCain was playing the Caucasian card.
Does that sound offensive? I suppose it is, just as offensive as styling the race card a pejorative. But any black man or woman in America has heard worse. If people make assumptions about you simply on the basis of your appearance all your life, assumptions ranging from criminality to sloth to unearned opportunity, it can make you bitter and hard and cynical. That none of those things is part of the Obama character means that he has turned his particular version of the race card into an ace and is using it to play with the full deck. That is not a deficit. It is an advantage.