the more things change, . . .

i've been saying this for a while: if we end up with another republican president, after the past eight years, we have only the bigoted white racists among us to blame, and that's a real shame but there's not much to be done about it beyond getting our people to the polls

So what is the true power of Sarah Palin's and McCain's appeal? Why are they doing better than expected in the polls despite 8 years of Republican corruption, incompetence, lies and failures? I hate to say this of my fellow white Americans, but one very important factor appears to be a quality he possesses which many of them consider immutable, and a deal breaker when it comes to voting for Obama: the color of his skin. Hopefully in the debates this Fall Obama can do well enough to convince some of my fellow whites who are on the fence that the content of his character matters more than their stereotypical view of "his kind." If not this will be a long and ugly campaign that will remain close enough for the GOP to steal once more through the use of their vaunted "purge the voters who don't look pale enough" campaigns which have been so effective in 2000 and 2004.

and the debates won't change a thing