'Real' America's Not Racist

The media focus on the “Bradley effect" and the notion of a divided nation—"real" vs. "elite"—hyped by the McCain campaign suggests that racism among small-town whites will prove a stumbling block for Barack Obama, Frank Rich writes. But the alleged racism is nowhere near as widespread as it’s been made out to be, Rich argues in the New York Times.

“The McCain campaign is so dumb that it bought into the press’s confirmation of its own prejudices” about small-town whites, Rich writes. But “there are not and have never been enough racists in 2008 to flip this election.” Meanwhile, it’s become clear that the GOP—which has driven away Hispanic, black, and gay Americans—has “no idea what ‘real America’ is," he notes.
(More Election 2008 stories.)