Racism, Ignorance or Both?

Ok...so Obama's going to get destroyed in today's West Virginia primary. I realize that. A Hillary blowout won't surprise me. What has surprised me is the free expression of shameless racism and ignorance by some of Hillary's supporters in the media over the past day or so.

This clip on Gawker from West Virginia television shows an older white woman saying that she won't vote for Obama because "he's a Muslim and that has a lot to do with it". When the reporter points out that he's a Christian, she flat out refuses to believe it.

From a story in the Financial Times this weekend:

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coal mining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Stephen Colbert has been jokingly referring to Obama as a "secret Muslim terrorist" for weeks...but it's getting less funny as I realize that people really believe it. Many pundits and political journalists assumed that the only upside to the Rev. Wright controversy is that it would put to rest the "Obama is a Muslim" urban legend.

The Washington Post today reports on the open racism that has been directed towards Obama volunteers. One woman told an Obama volunteer, "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?".

My initial reaction would be to shrug these people off as people that don't vote Democratic anyway...but many of these folks are Hillary supporters. I'm betting that someone that refers to Obama as a "half-breed" is probably not going to back him when Hillary fails to get the nomination.

Is this generational? The exit polls have shown time and time again that the older you are, the more likely you are to have difficulty voting for an African-American. Does progress in America only come as those generations unwilling to yield die off? Is it related to education? West Virginia ranks dead last in the nation for percentage of adults with a college education. Income? Again, West Virginia is at the bottom. As I heard one political commentator say this weekend, "I'm not sure why Hillary thinks it's a selling point that she attracts the least educated voters."

Or am I just the height of elitism, looking for some formula to explain away people that think differently than myself?

I believe that Obama will win the presidency. A recent Washington Times poll has Obama several points ahead of McCain...and, theoretically, this should be McCain's peak time. He's faced no real "softening" from Obama or the DNC yet. What I wonder is...will 4 years of an Obama presidency resolve a little of this ignorance? Will some of these folks look back in the year 2012 and say, "You know...he DIDN'T invite Osama Bin Laden to the White House for tea. Maybe he's not a secret Muslim terrorist after all." Or am I simply overly optimistic?