Watching the talking heads

Before I jump onto the treadmill for a bit, I got done watching people like Scarborough and Rachel Madson on MSNBC talk about the Obama speech. And Scarborough said something interesting: "Obama had the best historic speech about race, the most important speech about race in 40 years - but he'll lose votes in Pennsylvania, because white people don't want to have real discussions about race."

Or - something like that. But it was interesting. See, Obama seems to be banking on the American people being better than that. That people in PA and the rest of the country can go "OK - I don't agree with his pastor on some things, but what he said wasn't racist - it was honest anger about the way that black people have been treated in the US. Perhaps some things might be wrong, maybe he got them right - but what Wright said wasn't racist, and that doesn't make Obama a racist just because they're talking about how things look from their point of view."

Joe Scarborough and others like him are betting that America *isn't* that mature. That people in PA will see the speech on their local news and go "Well, who cares - damn black people get affirmative action and I don't - I'm voting for Clinton."

Personally, I'm betting on the former. Sure, there are the 25-percenters - the people who support Bush no matter what. And even in the Democratic party, I'm going to bet that 25% are just as racist as Scarborough believes.

The rest, I'm betting, are going to go "Well, OK - let's think about it."

But that's me.