Obama as racial bargainer?

Today's Wall St. Journal published an editorial by conservative writer Shelby Steele that described Obama as a "bargainer" like Oprah Winfrey--someone who, without ever saying so, offers whites absolution for their racist sins in exchange for whites' support. My spouse (unwaveringly Republican from birth) sent me the editorial. Here's a link to the editorial:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120579535818243439-lMyQjAxMDI4MDE1ODcxOTg1Wj.html

And here's my reply to my spouse:

I’d pretty much agree with this. But I wonder why Steele didn’t avail himself of this opportunity to mention that Obama’s support for illegal immigration extends the bargaining past just white guilt over blacks but white guilt over Latinos as well. I wonder if Steele is so focused on black-white relations that he missed this? Of course it’s a point that the WSJ’s corporate-tool editorial position doesn’t want to talk about…

I do think he’s right (i.e. he agrees with what I’d already said to you) about Obama’s reasons for attending a black nationalist anti-white church—and marrying an “all black” woman—he was trying to become what others saw him as—black—despite his having been raised by a white in areas nowhere near black communities. I’m guessing he has unresolved inner conflict over his biraciality. I don’t think this disqualfies him for the presidency, but I’m sure he lacks inner peace because of it. I wonder what Michelle’s relationship with his mom was like?

One cavil—Obama’s first memoir is by all accounts extremely self-revelatory (while his second is standard P.R. fare). So he precluded being a cipher in this regard.

Let me add that assuming he gets the nomination, even if everything Steele says—and other things his detractors say that are factually correct (as opposed to all the Swiftboating that has already started), we still have to evaluate him vs. the GOP nominee—not against our abstract notions of who we’d like to have as our president.

Maybe the purely symbolic aspect of an Obama presidency would be worth it. The country won’t go to hell in a handbasket with either Obama or McCain—if it could, it would have after eight years of epic mismanagement under the biggest spendthrift in American history (when you take into account the long-term costs of the Iraq war and occupation and the long-term consequences of massive business deregulation).

My personal dilemma is that I get the impression that an Obama presidency would be better for you & me personally (via reforms in medical care especially) but a McCain presidency would be better for America in the long run (providing a check to opposite-party Congress).

Or to put it another way:

Being black is a disadvantage if you look and talk Ghetto. Being white is a disadvantage if you look and talk Hick. Being white is an advantage if you look and talk College Educated--and being black is an even bigger advantage if you look and talk College Educated. True, you'll still have trouble hailing a cab at midnight in D.C. But you'll have a leg up in corporate America, as any Human Resources pro will tell you in private.

American society, in various aspects, discriminates by dress, speech, race, gender, and other factors. Any of these factors can be an advantage or disadvantage in different circumstances. For example, even though uneducated-sounding speech generally hampers anyone in business regardless of race or gender, Bush's success depended in part in sounding like an ignorant yahoo (with a Harvard MBA). Hence "new-kew-lur" for "nuclear," along with innumerable malapropisms--none of which were apparent in public speeches and debates at the start of his political career.

Steele's comment on Obama's bargaining is true, I think, on a subliminal level, for many Americans. I regret that Steele apparently didn't see that Obama's support for illegal immigration extends this bargaining to Mexicans. Obama's candidacy must have a powerful psychological component--otherwise how could you explain so many people supporting Obama when his preference for illegal aliens undercuts the Democratic Party's traditional mainstay--blue-collar American workers, who have seen their wages depressed 10-20% due to competition from illegal aliens.

It's as if Obama has taken a page out of the Republican Party's playbook--developing emotional appeals strong enough to get people to vote against their economic self-interest. And he is an apt student, isn't he?