Roger Simon speculates on whether Brack Obama’s race will make the difference in the presidential election, saying the percentage of voters who wouldn’t vote for him because he’s black could be 15 percent. But I don’t think race will ultimately make or break Obama’s candidacy. For one, even if you say that 15 percent of the public would not vote for Obama, what proportion of that population would normall consider voting Democrat? Furthermore, any vote against Obama because he is black will be at least partially offset by the fact that his candidacy will boost black turnout, and some percentage of the white population will vote for Obama because he is black and they feel his election would improve race relations. When you consider all of those factors, I imagine that the net disadvantage of Obama being black is far lower than 15 percent, and ultimately gets thrown together with dozens of other variables about a candidate that could swing the election. For John McCain, similarly, I’d bet that a certain degree of the electorate won’t vote for him because they think he’s too old. Obviously, there’s no way of knowing all of this, and there’s no doubt that liberals will try to blame any Obama loss in November on racism.