There will be “some impact,” Will declared. “And I think this adds to my calculation — this is very hard to measure — but it seems to me if we had the tools to measure we’d find that Barack Obama gets two votes because he’s black for every one he loses because he’s black because so much of this country is so eager, (a) to feel good about itself by doing this, but more than that to put paid to the whole Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson game of political rhetoric.”

“But this year there is another force at work: young voters, especially those under 30. Most of them are more or less oblivious to race in their political thinking. They have grown up in an integrated world. Or, if they do take race into account, they like the fact that Obama is a mixed-race African-American with an international background.”

The Facebook effect is also related to race. So, add Fineman to the list of MSM folks saying that race will be the deciding factor in this election. And an important reason why analysis and correction of poor or malicious race-related coverage of the election is so critical.

An example is a TPM article that Prof. Camille Charles pointed out to us this morning. A Virginia GOP mailer is suspected of aligning Obama’s face with Osama bin Laden’s. The article has photos and explains how.

The story is that Bobby May, a McCain campaign organizer in Virginia, wrote a column in a Virginia newspaper that included:

Obama would hire the rapper Ludacris (a prominent supporter) to paint the White House black. And the….

…Democrat’s administration would divert more foreign aid to Africa so “the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream.”

May also joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag “with a star and crescent logo,” an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to “raise taxes to pay for Obama’s inner-city political base.”

What motivates some journalists to call overt racism like this “racially tinged” or “racial jokes”? Why not just call it racist?

Analysis of Zogby polling has showed that younger voters, whom I identify in  The Way We’ll Be as “First Globals,” are much more racially tolerant than their parents, and especially their grandparents. The trend toward each new generation being more open to diversity is peaking with these First Globals. Any remnants of submerged racial bias surfacing on Election Day are eroding, and I doubt we will see it Nov. 4.

I find it curious that this was published on forbes.com.  Is the piece part of some editor’s notion of colorblindness?  Or part of the growing realization among journalists across the spectrum that race is a factor that we need to grapple with in this historic election?

It seems that at least one Florida teacher isn’t concerned about sharing his racism with his student.  As Bart Motes writes on HuffPost, the teacher wrote this on his chalkboard: “C.H.A.N.G.E. — Come Help A N—-r Get Elected.”