"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.

The campaign released this statement in response to questions about encounters with racism: "After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."

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On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

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In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright." ...

...When McCormick arrived at the office, about two hours before he was due out of bed to plant corn, he grabbed his camera and wanted to alert the media. "I thought, this is a big deal." But he was told Obama campaign officials didn't want to make a big deal of the incident. McCormick took photos anyway and distributed some.

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Obama has not spoken much about racism during this campaign. He has sought to emphasize connections among Americans rather than divisions. He shrugged off safety concerns that led to early Secret Service protection and has told black senior citizens who worry that racists will do him harm: Don't fret. Earlier in the campaign, a 68-year-old woman in Carson City, Nev., voiced concern that the country was not ready to elect an African American president.

"Will there be some folks who probably won't vote for me because I am black? Of course," Obama said, "just like there may be somebody who won't vote for Hillary because she's a woman or wouldn't vote for John Edwards because they don't like his accent. But the question is, 'Can we get a majority of the American people to give us a fair hearing?' "

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In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him.

"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."

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Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

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U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's race and inflammatory racial remarks made by his former preacher negatively affect how likely voters view the candidate, according to a new Herald-Leader/WKYT Kentucky Poll.

More than one in five likely Democratic voters surveyed said being black hurts Obama's chances of winning an election in Kentucky, compared to 4 percent who said Obama's race helps him.

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The telephone survey of 500 likely Democratic voters was conducted from May 7 through May 9 by Research 2000 of Olney, Md. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

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"I'll be very blunt," said pollster Del Ali, president of Research 2000. "Even if there wasn't a Rev. Wright controversy, I think Obama would have a tough time in Kentucky, for obvious reasons."

The Bradley effect

The fact that 56 percent of interviewed voters said Obama's race was not important could be due to something called the Bradley effect, Ardrey said.

In 1982, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who was black, was predicted to win the governor's race by a comfortable margin but lost.

"It's not socially acceptable to say things about race and gender, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, they come out," Ardrey said. "That's why polls are not accurate when it comes to true feelings on race and gender, especially race."

Sandy Ross agrees that people won't always be truthful about why they vote a certain way. A math teacher at Menifee County Elementary School, she thinks her community has come a long way on issues like racial equality, but "frankly, we still have a ways to go."

"In Menifee County, race matters more than gender," Ross said. "People are more inclined to vote for a woman than a black person."

Ross likes many of Obama's ideas, but was definitely alienated by Wright's remarks, which many feel demonized white America.

And for her, gender is the main issue. "Mrs. Clinton is a woman, she has common sense and I think it's time," she said. "Men have made a royal mess of things."

Still, Obama's race and name are different enough for some people that they cannot support him.

Bill Donovan of Inez says he's not racist, and would love to support a black candidate like former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

But he believes that Obama is a Muslim and therefore unsuited to be president. "He was born and reared a Muslim," Donovan said. "He can say whatever he wants to say but he is what he is. We're fighting a war on terror and we don't need a fox in the henhouse."

Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, a Muslim country. He is a Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

Webb, whose 2005 book Born Fighting looks at how the Scots-Irish have shaped America, said Wednesday that he bristles when it is suggested that racism is behind Obama's paltry performance among this group.

"When I hear people say this is racism, it gets my back up a little bit because that's my cultural group," said Webb. "This isn't Selma, 1965."

During his Wednesday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Webb touted a 2004 op-ed he wrote for The Wall Street Journal in which he not only argued that diversity programs have had "an unequal impact" on white ethnic groups but also expressed his hope that an alliance could one day be forged with African Americans.

"The key thing," said Webb, is "if this cultural group could get at the same table with black America, you could really change American politics because they have so much in common in terms of what they need out of government."

Asked if an Obama-Webb ticket might be the way to bring those two groups to the same table, Webb's spokesperson played it coy.

"I'm not going to answer that question," said Smith.

The bulk of the Bush controversies over the last seven years are grounded in the Bush/Cheney view of executive power: that when it comes to national security, war and foreign policy (so broadly defined that it even includes what the Government does to U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil), nothing can constrain what the President does -- not even laws enacted by the American people through their Congress. John McCain is now embracing those extremist theories in full. The only difficult question is to decide what's more disturbing: that McCain switches positions so quickly and completely on such fundamental questions, or that he is now espousing a view of presidential power that has fueled the radicalism and lawlessness of the last seven years?

UPDATE: It's also worth noting that these days, in order to please the self-proclaimed "small government" conservative movement, a candidate must now vow to spy on Americans with no warrants or oversight of any kind; reserve the right to torture; and even break the law -- ignore popular will as expressed through acts of Congress -- whenever such lawbreaking is deemed beneficial. Those are now defining planks in the limited-government "conservative" movement.

1. The Secretary of State of Ohio Jennifer Brunner filed a request in the Supreme Court relating to the underlying claim in her state that there has been voter registration fraud…with ties to the work of ACORN in registering voters.

2. A group — the Service Employees International Union [SEIU] — filed an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to rule with the Secretary of State of Ohio (and essentially asking for a ruling that would be favorable to ACORN in that it would “call off the dogs.”)

3. I thought it curious that SEIU would file an amicus brief for Brunner and did some quick research …and now I need more indepth research (which is where YOU come in.) According to my quick research..the same person who started ACORN, started SIEU. His name is Wade Rathke. So then I wondered, who is Wade Rathke?

4. I did some really quick research and learned that Rathke was a member of the anti war group SDS.

Clearly from your set of comments, you didn't...