Speaking ability is an important thing. Politics has always been about the speech, it's traditional.
As for race, I was thinking about that last night, mostly because suddenly everyone is chanting ITS A VICTORY FOR BLACKS EVERYWHAR! on TV. I started thinking about black people who could run for president and if I would think about their race within the first second. Obama? Yes. Jessie Jackson? Yes. Will Smith? No. Oprah? Yes. Bill Cosby? No. Colin Powel? No. Despite what the people with political stake in the matter want to say, we have a cultural divide here, and it doesn't run between black and white, it runs between those who characterize themselves with their "black-ness" and those who characterize themselves with their personality.
I think Bass' comment is that Obama is cuturally black and there are a lot of culturally-blacks and whites who are empowered politcally by increasing the power of the culturally black who worked very, very hard to put Obama in.
However, the responsibility lies with the Republicans. Collectively, they were a bunch of yellow-bellied pansies who wouldn't stand up against the liberals and they deserved to lose.
