Geraldine Ferraro spoke the obvious about Obama: much of his appeal is racial — white folk thinking it would be cool to have a black president, black folk voting for one of their own.

As we posted last month, novelist Phillip Roth specifically mentioned Obama’s race as reason for his support.

The Anchoress weighs in:

Geraldine Ferraro, having suggested publicly not once, but twice, over the course of 20 years and two African-American presidential bids, that (essentially) the black man can only ascend to the presidency through affirmative action or white guilt, is stepping down from her position in the Clinton campaign’s finance committee:

Ferraro said she is stepping down so, “I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.”

Okay. Possibly she wasn’t in the mood to endure any further heat for her comments, or she doesn’t want to open Hillary up to the logical response to her charges, which would be, “how does your theory differ from the theory that Hillary is only where she is because she was married to Bill?” - a question I am sure the Clinton campaign does not want long-bubbling to the surface.

This brouhaha - coupled with the fact that Barack Obama won Mississippi yesterday with 90% of the black vote - has a lot to say about the way Democrats have talked themselves into a corner on identity politics, but it also has a lot to say about race relations in the nation. We clearly have a ways to go.