And shortly thereafter, researchers at Stanford University determined that Obama may lose up to 6 percentage points on election day, simply because he’s black. As Stanford Political Scientist Paul Sniderman stated it, "there's a penalty for prejudice, and it's not trivial."

It’s difficult to imagine that there are NOT some voters who will reject Obama simply because he’s black. Yet, it’s also difficult to deny that some voters will embrace Obama simply because he’s black, and some voters will reject McCain simply because he’s not black.

But the fact that there is racial tension in America is not “news.” And those who have been sounding the alarm about a possible “racial rejection” of Obama seem to assume that, race aside, there is nothing “unlovable” about Barack.

This is inaccurate. Many of us are appalled at the “moral equivalency” that Obama has expressed in his analysis of the democracy of Israel, and the terrorist state of Iran.

We are offended that, during his recent visit to an assembly of the United Nations in New York last week, the anti-Semitic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was treated to a special dinner in his honor, by Obama supporter and fundraiser Penny Pritzker. And the bizarre congeniality Obama has expressed towards the Israel-hating Ahmadinejad is now costing Obama dearly among many Democrats, Jewish Democrats in particular, in New York, New Jersey, and Florida.

Similarly, many of us Obama “non-supporters” are appalled at his economic plans. He talks a good game about “tax cuts for the middleclass,” yet has spent most of his 20 month campaign preaching the gospel of tax increases on corporations (as though this will create new jobs and improve productivity) and has vowed to nearly double the capital gains tax rate on all Americans. Obama running mate Joe Biden declared in stunning candor that he and Obama intend to “take money (without reference to whose money they wish to ‘take’) and put it in the pockets of the middle class people..” It is economic re-distribution - - “socialism” - - that Obama is peddling, and many of us aren’t buying it.

This election will be historic on many fronts. It’s a shame that the candidacy of America’s first, black, major party presidential candidate is tainted with such horribly flawed and destructive ideas.