The problem with Obama

It has become evident to me, as it must to any socially conscious American who lives or has lived in one of our major urban areas, that Mr. Obama's blackness is a problem, but not in the usual way. He is an attractive man fully qualified to "steer the ship of state" and represent America before humanity's highest authorities. Obama's problem rather, is that his core constituency and political base is the urban disadvantaged. The support of rural black and small town voters is almost incidental, secondary.

The traditional American political cleavage -- upstate versus downstate, urban versus rural -- may now be characterized, which is not to say, caricatured, as red-state/blue-state: states with a high percentage of urban voters versus states with a predominantly rural and small town mentality.

This became apparent to me in reviewing county polling results between Clinton and Obama in the Pennsylvania primary and should be apparent again in Indiana and probably North Carolina.

The question for me then, is, "is America ready to elect a 'big city' candidate, one who is a reflection of globalization? Or will we continue ignoring the world and our role (indeed, our responsibilities) in shaping its course to focus on our own personal destinies and our local communities?

The question for the democrats then, should be which coalition has a greater chance of winning the 2008 general elections: the feminist, social-democrats or a healing coalition of urban blacks and middle class whites frustrated with the status quo?

Beyond electoral politics, the question for Americans might be, how can we redefine our attitudes and expectations to account for the reasonable expectations of America's underclasses?

If John Kerry was not electable why would Barack Obama be any more so?