Race matters, in electoral terms, because Barack is a counterfactual, one that the nation obviously feels it needs, sorely. (Same for gender).
The problem with the politics of this is that some are using that as a way to belittle his candidacy, rather than enliven it.*
It's really that simple.
What does it mean to 'transcend' race? That was the question that I more-or-less used to already question AS's formulation in The Atlantic story, in more than one context.
Today, AS comes up with a particularly good one from the Ebeneezer speech, one that is superbly inflected to the tenor of the times.
Whether or not you think Obama is the best counterfactual we could have, he's "it" now, so he's got to fill the shoes. This means having a positive message on race, a vision, something more than "meta" ("we have problems that need to be solved") and more than ignoring it as a way to transcend it.
It's there, apparently. It just needs to become a daily inspiration, not something we hear or think about once on MLK day.
Update: there appears to be another problem that people resent that x-factor, which they cannot possess.
I've got news for them, though. It would be a fierce re-writing of history to think that Obama's infectious message of hope is based on race or even propelled especially because of it. His message relies on his overwhelming authenticity, his life experience, and his talents as a communicator, even some of his positions, such as the one on the war, and some of his characteristics as a politician (the Senate is a rivalrous place and Obama has, in a short time, picked up a lot of Senate support).
Sorry, Gerry (and Pat Buchanan), race ranks very small in the list that any historian would reasonably choose to "explain" Obama's winsome ways. Her view is a distortion, for whatever reasons.
