Don't Count Your Black Votes Yet, Barack

Never mind his skin color—Barack Obama doesn't have a record that can guarantee black turnout, writes inquirer Harold Jackson. Prominent African American leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are still undecided, and Obama will have to court that constituency just like rival Hillary Clinton did.

Obama can give Hillary a run for her money, the column argues, but he has to show African Americans that he understands them; whispers about whether Obama is "black enough" may be shorthand for a worthy question. "They're really questioning whether he has been oppressed enough," Jackson writes. "Does he think like a person whose great-grandparents may have been slaves?" (More Barack Obama stories.)