The surprising ascendancy of Herman Cain to the top of the Republican presidential hopeful heap has been interesting, but since we have 13 months before the presidential election, it may or may not make any difference.

However, the prospect of an election featuring Obama vs. Cain is VERY interesting, since the standard charge against Republicans and the Tea Party has been that they are racists.  That’s ridiculous of course, since Republicans freed the slaves and voted as a bloc for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, whereas Democrats brought about the deaths of 400,000 Americans rather than give Blacks full citizenship and stood in schoolhouse doors rather than let them be educated.

Obama was elected president at least partially because a lot of white people were ready to vote for an African American for president and they vaguely (or consciously) believed it would be racist NOT to vote for him.

The polls would indicate those white-guilt-afflicted people are over it.

Joseph Lowry, the grand old man of the Civil Rights movement, famously said that Obama was not an “authentic” American-American  because he didn’t have “slave blood”.

It’s true that Obama is African-American; in fact, his father was African and not an American citizen at all.  However, Obama’s American half was as white as I am.  And he was raised by his white grandparents.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, can hearken back to  great-grandparents who were slaves here in Georgia, and grandparents who were sharecroppers.  It doesn’t get more “authentic” African American than that.