Boomerang

So you aren't voting for Barack Obama because you disagree with him on health care, or aren't nuts about his stance on abortion?

You don't think he's had as much experience as McCain?

Perhaps you aren't voting for him because you are still mad that Hillary isn't the Democratic candidate?

Or maybe you are a Republican who would rather eat fried ants than cast a vote for a Democrat?

While some or all of these reasons are worth a heated conversation, one isn't-that Obama is a Muslim.

As Nicholas Kristof comments, (see link), perhaps a third of the public believe that Obama is a Muslim, or that they've heard different things about his faith.

Let's leave out how offensive this is to people who really are Muslim. It really says awful things about the American public.

You really can't blame the press for this, unless you blame them for discussing the emails. They aren't the ones spreading the rumors (except on the far right).

You can't really blame most Republicans. They weren't going to vote for Obama anyway.

Take a look at the recent poll from the AP in which one third of Democratic respondents said that they felt negatively towards black people.

(http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20080921_Poll__Whites__misgivings_could_hurt_Obama.html)

Think there's no link between those results, elicited by this more sensitive poll, and the rumor that he's a Muslim?

Those who chose negative adjectives to describe black people were, amazingly, less likely to vote for Obama.

Examining the political scene this year, some commentators have been scrambling to figure out why, in a year when the "issues' seem to favor the Democrats, the Presidential race (as opposed Congressional, where we might have a blowout) is so close.

We're getting closer to making, hmmm... an uneducated guess.