The Obama people pull the race card anytime they can... It is obviously that they are attacking the fact Obama has the guy who drove fanny mae (the firm that started the whole housing mess) into the ground on his campaign. He just happens to be black.

If anything they could say Obama is racist for putting someone who ruined major corporations on his campaign just because he is black...

Depends on where you live.  I live in the middle of redneckville where I hear racial slurs, whether against blacks, chinese, hispanics or other, just about any time I go anywhere.

Maybe that makes some of us more sensitive to racism, but I wouldn't call it a "bleding-heart kneejerk reaction". 

Maybe it just makes you naive.

I doubt he put him on there just because he is black. Anyways, the same could be said for the republicans this time on sexism. The lipstick remark was obviously not sexist and the McCain campaign tried to pull that it was. Plus, alot of her coverage is not sexist, its the same any new player in washington gets. Lastly, this is not even the Obama camp, just some editorial from a journalist.

This gives me an idea for an experiment, consider this scenario:

If we placed 4 complete strangers in a room, 2 non-white (assume black for this case) individuals with one political leaning and 2 white individuals with the opposite political leaning and all 4 of which were blind and unaware of the skin color of any of the other people in the room. Then we requested they discuss politics one subject at a time and recorded the result from a vantage point where it would not be apparent that any of them are blind.

How would 3rd parties observing the recording of a heated debate in such a scenario interpret the racial tension? Would they recognize that there was none or would their own worldview/prejudice impose one? How would that perception differ between 3rd party observers (white/black/hispanic/etc..)? Would the participants, when asked to describe the demeanor and tenor of the discussion mention any racism? Would the participants, once informed of the race of their debate partners, see racism in hindsight?

Note: The point of the experiment is to isolate and remove any possible racism from the debate (conscious or subconscious) and then evaluate the interpretation of the situation from individuals who are unaware that this factor was removed. This is currently a thought exercise so set aside any complaint about how bias might still be interjected into the discussion and instead focus on the principle idea of the scenario. What do you think would happen?

Its an interesting scenario to say the least. I would not be surprised if this had been attempted already.

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Uh...it totally does.  Where exactly in the US do you live?  If you're in rural areas I'm SURE you've heard white fold being racist against black people, and if you're in a black neighborhood, there's tons of blind hate against white people...it still exists to some degree everywhere.

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Abject racism is not extinct.  I will agree that there is manufactured racism and that some tend to be a bit too sensitive of it, but to say that its not real at all is naive to say the least.

not in the least.

 Racism does exist. Especially in the Deep south. But it does exist up north, but it is not the same, it is more against Black Culture (thug, etc.) than the color, because most have no problem with a black guy who acts "white" like Obama. So I do not see Obama's race hurting him... the deep south usually votes Red anyways. But people use the race card for their own gain. You can hardly do anything without being flag as racist. It has led to their being lower criteria for exceptance into schools for example. Lets put it this way, if a white guy and a black girl apply to Harvard, and both score a 1300 on the sat (old scoring system) the black girl will most likely be accepted, but the white dude had better be rich, or know people with a 1300. Now when you get above 1400 you were looking much better. It really does annoy when black people exploit their race.

About the lipstick on the pig, when Obama tried to explain what he meant he said McCain's tax policies were the pig and Sarah Palin was the lipstick... so basically he said she "sexys" up his policies. That does border on sexist. Also, Obama was highly noted for making sexist remarks against hilary, so it carried over a bit. But yes, they should be warry of pulling the sex card too much.