There is hope ...

Read this bio of Barack Obama in the American Prospect.

"Supporters in Illinois say Obama represents something of a Rorschach test: people project their viewpoints onto him. Valerie Jarrett, a longtime friend and the treasurer of his political action committee, said that people see something of themselves in him. The danger, she said, is that they assume Obama will do what they would do, vote the way they would vote. That could backfire on him, but it hasn’t yet. “He has the ability to touch diverse crowds and there’s a sense of clicking,” Jarrett said. “And because he can click with so many different kinds of people, the expectation is that because I clicked with him, he’s going to agree with me.”

Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr. still hasn’t gotten over a scene he witnessed the day he accompanied Obama on a campaign swing in the predominately white, southern part of the state. “A little old lady said to me, ‘I’m 86 years of age. I hope I live long enough because this young man’s going to be president and I want to be able to vote for him.’ It was a little old white lady! It was astounding,” says Jones, who was something of a mentor to Obama in the state Senate. “There were 3,000 people there. There were three blacks: him, me, and my driver. People are drawn to him. He talks to people on the same level … It resonates more.”"