What about black voters?

I'm tired of hearing about working-class white voters in this election. The presidential candidates aren't running for president of middle-class white America; they're running for president of all of America.

It all started when Senator Barack Obama failed to "close the deal" in Texas and Ohio back in March.

The following weekend, Obama trounced Clinton in Wyoming, beating her by a stunning 24 points in a state with almost no black people in it.

He won again the next week in Mississippi, defeating Clinton by 25 points in the cradle of the confederacy, in a state that borders Clinton's previous home state of Arkansas.

Pundits Dismiss Obama Victories

But the pundits dismissed Obama's victory in Mississippi, as they did with his victories in South Carolina (29 points), North Carolina (15 points) and Georgia (15 points).

The pundit-in-chief, Bill Clinton, set the tone, back in January. "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88," Clinton said at a rally in Columbia, South Carolina. "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here." In other words, Jackson and Obama only won South Carolina because of the high percentage of black voters in that state and they couldn't win a state with large numbers of white voters.

But if that were true, then how do you explain Senator Obama's win in overwhelmingly white  Iowa (8 points over Clinton) and his double-digit victories in white states like Alaska (51 points), Colorado (34 points), Delaware (11 points), Idaho (62 points), Kansas (48 points), Minnesota (34 points), North Dakota (25 points) and Utah (18 points)? 

Obama also won the white vote in Wisconsin and split the white vote with Clinton in the key swing state of Missouri, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So he didn't do as well in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and he probably will lose in the Kentucky primary next week as well. Does that mean Obama can't win the white vote? Hardly. The overwhelming majority of white voters who cast their ballots for Clinton will vote for Obama if he's the nominee in November. Given the record turnouts in the Democratic contests this year, that looks good for the party's nominee. 

Exploiting White Fears

Although polls indicate that some of Clinton's white voters will stay home or vote for McCain in an Obama-McCain general election race, the majority of her voters are still sticking with the Democratic Party. And many of the Clinton voters who say they won't vote for Obama right now will have a change of heart when the choice is more clearly defined between Obama and McCain later this year.

Last week, Senator Clinton found a new way to exploit the fears of Democratic superdelegates who may be concerned that Obama can't win against McCain. Clinton said she had the support of "hard-working Americans, white Americans" and Obama was losing them. "There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Yes there is a pattern, but it's not the one Hillary Clinton is talking about. It's a pattern spun by Clinton, her surrogates and media pundits like Chris Matthews who publicly worry that white voters won't support Barack Obama.

I will be the first person to tell you that white racism is alive and well in America -- whether or not Barack Obama wants to talk about it. The racial attacks on his campaign staff, that we reported this week, provide just one example of the lingering prejudice in America.

Black Voters Will Be Key

But the media's obsession with "white voters" misses the fundamental point. It's not the white voters who are key to a Democratic victory; it's the black voters. I've lived through nine different presidential elections in my lifetime, and no Democrat has ever won the majority of the white vote in any of them.

Jimmy Carter won just 49 percent of the white vote in 1976 and Bill Clinton won 38 percent of white voters when I worked for his campaign in 1992. The numbers are even worse among white men. Al Gore, a white male himself, won the national popular vote in 2000 but received only 36 percent of the white male vote.

What that means is that white voters -- and particularly white men -- are not the key to the general election. It's the black voters who could swing the election. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton never would have won the presidency without the near universal support of African Americans. And Al Gore never would have won the popular vote in 2000 without the help of black voters.

That spells good news for Barack Obama and bad news for Hillary Clinton. If 90 percent of black voters turned out for Al Gore and John Kerry, imagine what they'll do for Barack Obama? And imagine how many more African Americans will show up at the polls with an African American candidate at the head of the ticket?

But there's bad news for Hillary Clinton. Although more Obama supporters than Clinton supporters say they will support the Democratic nominee if their candidate loses, Clinton is in a difficult spot with black voters. John McCain is actively courting African American voters -- he's even taken out an advertisement on this site -- and he could make a dent in the black vote if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination.

That's because black voters are -- what's the phrase I'm looking for? -- pissed off at Bill and Hillary Clinton. There's no guarantee that Hillary Clinton will win the black vote if she's the nominee. And in fact, it's highly likely she'll lose the black vote if it looks like she stole the nomination away from the all-but-certain victor, Barack Obama. McCain's chances will increase against Clinton if he chooses a black running mate. That could realign black voters for decades.

The untold story of the election is that black voters count. Indeed, in a few southern states -- like North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia -- black voters may be the key to unlocking the door to the once Republican South. That's a golden opportunity for Barack Obama.

If there were ever a time for Obama to win, then this is it. Eighty-one percent of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. That means a significant percentage of Independents and Republicans are also upset with the status quo. Democrats have won three consecutive special elections in recent weeks to take away three Republican congressional seats. Two of those seats -- Louisiana and Mississippi -- are in the South.

This is the time.

Americans are rapidly losing faith in the GOP's slash-and-burn politics that does more to elect Republicans than to solve the nation's problems. And black voters are more upset than anyone. 

So let the media obsess about the "working-class white voters." They'll miss the biggest story of the year. Black voters are likely to decide the next president.