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.

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.

I think they might be able to tell, since alot of black people have a telltale accent that white people don't have for some reason. If they didn't have the accent, then I doubt they would be able to tell.

See Bolded.

I understand your point, but there are plenty of ways to combat that issue. From selecting individuals without accents to using voice modulation.

I wanted to avoid that debate because we obviously can't create the scenario anyways. The question is simply if the conditions were achieved, what do you think the results would be?

In all honesty the experiment is two-fold. Finding out what people would expect to happen and what would actually happen. I think this would be an extremely interesting study on the perception of racial tension.