The Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question

I think the thing that the Obama camp has used masterfully to their advantage is the perception that they are supposed to be the weak sister in this race. I don't think anyone on the outside trying to look in can understand the enormous amount of preparation that had to go into just the decision of whether or not a brown skinned man could be a viable presidential candidate.

The hardest job for the Obama inner circle was the sales pitch they had to make, both to themselves and the key staffers they were asking to sign on. The kind of people they have carrying the water for them do not sign on to lose. Making them believers must have taken an extraordinarily calculated and detailed plan of attack, knowing as they must have the amount of opposition these people would face from families and colleagues alike.

These people are not doing a job. They are on a mission. Their sensibilities are likely to be extremely heightened, understanding as they do that any misstep, large or small, could doom all their efforts.

Running a campaign like a corporation, looking for the easiest and quickest way to win the most delegates, only works when you and your opponent have the same type of game plan.

I believe the Obama campaign, understanding from the beginning that they were likely to be the tortoise in this race, looked at the mathematics of gathering delegates differently.

If you take the two candidates faces away for a moment, you've got Harvard Law versus Yale Law, in my mind.

At the end of the day, though, after all of this high-minded conjecture, the sixty four thousand dollar question is pretty much the only one nobody wants to say out loud - does Obama, with his black face and funny name, frighten enough people to make Clinton the nominee?

All I can tell you, from my own roost here in the metaphorical land known as Afro-America, for a lot of people this is pretty much the turn of the century version of the Joe Louis fight for his first heavyweight championship. Its almost like the thirties again, except TV's have replaced radios, and the rounds are weeks instead of minutes. But blood is in the air now, same as it was then.

It will be a sad day indeed in the Clinton camp when CNN has to post her name BELOW Obama's. To have to look at that graphic day in and day out for the next three weeks will be pure torture. Right now, I would imagine that she is feeling a lot like Phil Mickelson on one of those Saturdays when he is leading a tournament with Tiger two strokes behind.

If there ever was a time to put your money where your mouth is, it is now - if I were in the Obama camp I would empty the coffers to get people on the streets of Texas and Pennsylvania. If you look at California, a lot of the votes were cast weeks before the actual election date - hard to say what might have happened had most of them been cast on the same day.

My TV is getting tired - I need to let it cool off. I haven't watched TV this much in fifteen years.