You mean, are people mad enough to vote for a Black guy.
Obama May Test Voter Discontent
Support for Young Senator To Furnish a New Measure Of Anti-Washington Mood
By JACKIE CALMES
January 17, 2007; Page A12
With his first official step toward a run for the presidency, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama now will test just how eager voters are, in the wake of his Democratic Party's recent takeover of Congress, to further shake up Washington.
Mr. Obama's low-key announcement on his Web site Tuesday that he had formed a presidential exploratory committee followed months of celebrity buzz and crowds at his appearances across the country. For many in his party, and some independents, the freshman senator has come to personify a hopeful prospect of change from the polarizing politics of recent years.
Yet he has vaulted near the top in presidential polls, threatening longtime front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who is expected to enter the race soon; 2004 vice-presidential nominee John Edwards and other Democratic aspirants, without a clear sense of his own policy agenda, and in spite of the question of whether Americans will elect a black candidate to the nation's highest office.
Mr. Obama, raised by his white mother from Kansas but the namesake son of a Kenyan father he hardly knew, seeks to be the first African-American nominee of a major party, let alone president. At 45 years old, he also must overcome doubts whether he is too green to be commander-in-chief of a nation at war, after two years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as a state senator. While his current popularity transcends those questions of race and credentials, they are certain to figure in a presidential campaign.
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