Otterblog

There’s that great scene in Casablanca, where Capt. Renault is shocked to find there’s gambling going on at Rick’s.

I feel a little of that misplaced energy this morning, after Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race yesterday. Love him, hate him, just don’t care for him. It’s hard not to be impressed by the pain and power in his speech. Over the past week, I get the sense that many white Americans have been shocked, shocked, to find out that a) Barack Obama is black, and b) that he goes to a black church; and c) that he has a black minister who has preached on controversial and potentially divisive topics, particularly when seen in a short video snippet.  Was I shocked?  Not really. Still, the harshness of the preacher’s rhetoric was jarring and a little unsettling.

And if Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee, you will see these clips again and again through November.

The mix of race and politics on which the Democratic primary will now likely turn is familiar ground to many journalists in North Carolina. Some of the overtones and undertones of this primary are reminiscent of the 1990 primary between Harvey Gantt and Mike Easley. In that campaign, which I covered a lifetime ago, Gantt did an effective job—at least in the primary—of courting a sufficient number of white voters, while sewing up a huge majority of black voters. Obama hasn’t quite done that, but he’s deftly managed the calculus of the sprawling primary schedule.

Obama is in Fayetteville and Charlotte today, giving speeches, a reflection of the renewed interest in North Carolina’s primary voters. See James Romoser’s Trail Mix blog and our story this morning for more details on that.

This is a very fluid story, and what I will be interested to see as the day wears on, is whether Obama’s talk in Fayetteville, which is supposed to be a “major address” on the War in Iraq (now in its fifth year) can fight its way through the more provocative story that features the endless video clips of the Rev. Wright.