A Fascinating Moment in the Campaign

Tuesday mornings bring one of my favorite hours of the week: a Bible Study with a lovely group of ladies who have, in some cases, just reached retirement age, and in other cases, have long since passed that point. The youngest member of the group is about 63. The eldest, 84. I am fairly certain that they are all voting for Sen. McCain.
But this morning, I left the meeting stunned. As we were concluding our look at Esther, with my comment on how the Jews in that story went from trying to hide their identity when Haman (look it up if you need to) was running the show, to seeing others trying to claim Jewish identity when Mordecai (again, look it up if you need to) got the reins.
At that moment, the lady who sort of leads the group said, "Why don't they ever call Obama white?" Another immediately jumped in, "Yes, his mother was white. He is as white as he is black." Others contributed that they had wondered why this child of a biracial marriage is considered black.
I have read the polls for weeks. I have pored over realclearpolitics.com, electoral-vote.com and fivethirtyeight.com constantly. I have watched Barack's numbers rise. But I don't know that I ever really believed he could win this election until this morning. If a group of rural, southern, older, white women who have probably voted Republican since 1968 can sit together wondering why the junior Senator from Illinois isn't generally considered a member of their own racial group, then this remarkable man has this election in the bag!
Because their comments mean that they have digested all of the charges about his religion, his education, his pastor, his tangential relationship to William Ayers, and all the rest of the garbage that has been thrown at him, and seen through it all. It means that they have recognized the son of a single mother, the young man who worked his way through college, the husband and father, the Harvard-trained lawyer who went to work for the poor and unemployed of Chicago, the brilliant young man who has risen through the Illinois legislature to the United States Senate, and inspired tens of millions of people across the country in his amazing campaign for the presidency, and they have decided that, even if they are still voting for his opponent, Barack Obama is ok with them.
And if Barack is ok with that group of ladies, the United States of America has made progress that we can all be proud of!