This sounds like an excuse made in advance for something that isn't going to happen. McCain is not going to win.

- "What if one candidate was a decorated former Navy pilot while the other saw his political patron indicted and convicted of improperly influecing elected officials?"

Etc.

The other truth is he has run a pretty gutless, leaderless campaign, and if he had taken stands, called senators to vote how he thought was right at certain times, led his committee, than it wouldn't matter the latent racism that is out there.

It is just way too easy to cry racism and it really doesn't do any good.

Look upstream, good people falling over their feet to call each other racist and to declare Ferraro a racist.  As opposed to acknowledging that Ferraro has a point, a non-racist point, but a point whose strength people can disagree with.

Regarding the other stuff about McCain.  McCain's done quite a bit wrong, but we've long ago showed that apart from talk, most American's don't care about the marriage issues, primarily because most American's have had pretty screwed up marriages themselves.  McCain has also done quite a bit that's right that I do respect him for that others may respect him for too.  His actions on the first tanker deal were 10000% correct and showed guts and leadership.  (Subsequent Airbus deals were arguably corrupt and showed the reverse).  (His position regarding FCS is arguably much much better than Obama's as well.)

There are legit reasons for people to wonder about Obama, and legit reasons for people to look to McCain.  Letters about racism that gloss over those reasons are not helpful at all.

And I have to forgive him for the Keating 5, one of my all time favorite Senators, Alan Cranston, was in that group too.

As a 29 yr old, I went back full-time to community college (after dropping out for 8 years) and finishing my BA at 31.  I went to school full-time from the fall of 97 to the spring of 2000.  i got all the credits i could from jr college and transfered to the university level.

I turned out okay and thankfully do well.  If having an Ivy League education (see Bush43 for details) is an example, I gladly take my public state schools over that thankyouverymuch.

THEN we could also opine about people like the guy who founded Wendy's who never finished high school and one Bill Gates who was a college drop-out.

The email obscures the facts that Obama runs a terrible campaign and that McCain does attract many people. We may not understand why McCain seems appealing to many, but I didn't understand why Democrats were attracted to Obama either.

With America facing historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, mortgage crises, bank foreclosures, etc.

You are The Boss... which team would you hire?

There are plenty of reasons one would chose NOT to vote for Obama. He has flip flopped on many issues already discussed to death on this and other sites.

I am Mexican and I can say that I've seen  very few instances of true racism in my life, but those few have been made insignificant by the vast majority of experiences with people of all walks of life.( I traveled the country for over 15 years, and I met thousands of people every year.)

I do not take lightly to the implied accusation that I am a racist for not voting for Obama, and I hope others are equally angered by that stupid email.

How did Barack Obama become president of the Harvard Law Review? How did he get into Columbia and Harvard? His grades, by all accounts, were not spectacular. And why didn't he publish anything while he held that position at the Harvard Law Review?

Why was an unpublished author -- a nobody -- given a massive advance to write Dreams From My Father? An advance big enough to justify renting an office and going on a "working holiday" in Bali?

Joe Biden saw his presidential ambitions end amid accusations of plagiarism. Obama has been caught plagiarizing repeatedly. If his skin were the same color as Joe Biden's, wouldn't he have shared Biden's fate?

What if John McCain said during a debate "I barely know Tony Rezko" -- and then an FBI informant later came forward to tell a tale of daily contacts? Wouldn't McCain's candidacy have ended right then and there?

What if John McCain had made sure that fat government contracts went to crooks who poured big bucks into his campaign, and who made sure that he could buy a mansion he could not afford?

What if the money for Stately McCain Mansion came from Nadhmi Auchi, the billionaire associate of Khaddafy and Saddam Hussein, convicted by the French for theft of public funds?

What if John McCain had sponsored a state law which allowed crooks to raid a hospital fund?

What if John McCain had done everything he could to make sure that subsidized housing was "privatized" in order for crooks to abscond with $100 million in state funds?

What if McCain's father were a Socialist bureaucrat tied to a corrupt foreign regime?

What if John McCain's mom had irresponsibly handed the kids off to Grandma in order to travel the world on a voyage of self-discovery?

What if John McCain had never served in the military and never held a real job?

What if John McCain's first general election commercial claimed that he voted for a bill -- on extended health care for those in the military -- that he actually did not vote for?

What if John McCain had promised to take public financing for his campaign and then suddenly reneged?

What if John McCain counted the crooked head of Fannie Mae among his financial advisers?

What if John McCain refused to denounce those supporters who threatened the lives of those advocating for an opponent?

What if John McCain had promised not to run in 2008 -- and did anyway?

What if John McCain had no record of accomplishments whatsoever?

What if John McCain had worked closely with a terrorist like William Ayers? What if John McCainlied about the association?

How quick would Democrats be to forgive any white candidate who rigged the caucuses and forbade a much-needed revote in Michigan and Florida?

How quickly would Democrats forgive any white candidate who rigged the roll call vote at the convention?

What if John McCain had insisted that Social Security was "not in crisis" during an October debate, only to call it a "crisis" a month later? (I mention this by of response to the reader who thinks that "Social Security" is an issue that can win the $50 challenge.)

What if John McCain had taken every conceivable position on Iran?

What if a white candidate claimed to be a staunch opponent of the Iraq war, yet refused to support Russ Feingold's pullout measure and voted repeatedly to fund the conflict?

What if John McCain claimed in campaign literature that he never supported NAFTA, when in fact he had?

What if John McCain was caught giving the Canadians backdoor reassurances that he didn't really mean what he said on the campaign trail? Wouldn't that scandal have ended the campaign of anywhite candidate?

What if any white candidate said that he was a vigorous opponent of the Iraq war during a 2004 Senate campaign -- when the record shows that he was no such thing, that he did everything he could to avoid talking about the invasion?

What if any white candidate purged his website of his speeches condemning the Surge?

What if any white candidate said that he would filibuster any bill offering telecom immunity, only to vote for it?

What if John McCain had spent twenty years attending a white racist "identity" church? Okay, never mind that: What if he had spent twenty years in Jerry Falwell's church? Or, heck, even a Gnostic church, or the Theosophical Society, or a Buddhist temple? Would such a candidate have anychance at a future in politics?

What if John McCain had headed up a campaign which encouraged an army of zombie followers to shout an unending stream of insults and lies at a former first lady and a former president?

Would any white candidate be allowed to run a smear campaign in a primary?

Would any white candidate be allowed to change his positions so radically on gay marriage, taxes, and gun control?

Would any white candidate get away with lying about "living on food stamps" when in fact he was brought up in affluence?

Would any white candidate get away with claiming that his parents were married when they were not? (I don't care either way, personally -- still, I think the matter would have been a bigger deal if the political bastard were, say, Chris Dodd.)

Thanks to Joseph Cannon.

Republicans will always attack any way they can, and Democrats shy away from attacking a lack of education. And somehow it's ok for Republicans to have a lack of education or to not appear to educated (see Bush Jr) but somehow it is not for Democrats.

It makes some good points, but I'm not sure, "How racism works" is the best  intro unless, again, we are pointing out the subtleties of institution racism.  White privilege has a hard time recognizing various forms of institutional racism outside its viewpoint ... even when it's not so subtle.

But, I have another thought to share.  I think most racists are not necessarily 'bad' people, but simply unconscious.  Most of the racists I know grew up in a vacuum in which they learned racism.  It's hard to shake all the years of racist parents teaching 'values' in that way.  More and more, though, we are becoming more conscious and more exposed to members of other races.  Today's high schoolers have a completely different perspective than youngsters had just 20 years ago.  It won't be long and it'll be a non-issue.

i'd be curious to see his flight school evaluations as well

And Palin, for God's sake.  Members of her legislature wore "Where's Sarah?" pins because she hardly showed up.

And don't even bring up the 'voting present' thing on Obama.  We all know the facts around it.  And McCain has the 2nd worse attendance record in the Senate.

Oh, and I guess he 'rolled up his sleeves' when he worked so hard at graduating near the bottom of his class in the military academy (or whatever it was he attended).

However, there is also the capacity of the voter to ignore anything negative about a candidate they want to vote for.

Example: Shortly before the election in 2000, it become known that Bush had been arrested for drunken driving. Perhaps it would have sunk Gore, but it did no damage to Bush. His partisans even successfully framed it as a low blow that this information was made public.

Example: Shortly before the election in 1992, it was revealed that Clinton allowed the execution of a mentally retarded man to proceed in Arkansas - rather than allow himself to be portrayed as one who was soft on crime. It made no difference to his supporters - many of whom were liberals.

I know that many regular folks would like to believe that they are just as smart as those that have excelled in education and obtained degrees from respected institutions.  But the truth is they are not.  People have different abilities and talents but some people are just plain more intelligent than others.  Some people have a greater ability to reason, to remember, to analyze.  Now, this doesn't make them any better, just better suited to some types of jobs.

Some people are gifted in other ways.  Some people have tremendous artistic or athletic talents, for example.  And while it seems perfectly reasonable to leave occupations like artist and athlete to those that have those gifts, many seem reluctant to allow those with the gifts of intelligence and reason to do those occupations that call for those things.  We even, at times, confuse one's fame and success in athletics or acting with one's qualifications to govern.

Now, I would submit that being President requires all kinds of talents, many of which cannot be taught or measured.  But it does also require the gifts of intelligence and reason.  And it requires the education that can only be attained by the use those with those gifts.