5/30/2008: Commentary: Obama in the "Crosshairs":

This is a subject that has many concerned and is not just rhetoric but
a genuine concern. In recent weeks, the role of race in the Democratic
primaries has been increasingly discussed. And while racist
caricatures and jokes about threats against Obama's life have been
widely condemned, they seem to reflect an undeniable element of racism
that still exists in the country and could play an unknown role in a
general election. A quite poll among those who are watching this event
unfold, 80%% state that someone will attempt the very thing all fear,
an attempt on the life of Obama. It is the lone wolf that has many
concerned.

"There is no question that the possibility of violence directed at
Obama, is the elephant in the middle of the room," says Peter Fenn,
adjunct professor of political management at George Washington
University, to describe the media's careful coverage of the issue.
"There is a hypersensitivity about this issue. And in one sense, there
should be because you don't want to put the idea out there. But you
also get overanalysis, like with Hillary's comments about RFK."

Last week, Hillary Clinton's comments about the 1968 assassination of
Kennedy caused an uproar among those who believe that the candidate
wanted to bring up the security issue surrounding Obama.

Fenn says that he was catching a flight at Dulles International
Airport last year when an African-American woman told him that Obama
shouldn't run. "She said, 'They're going to kill him.' African-
Americans are more worried about it."

And polls bear out that perception. Fifty-nine percent of Americans,
and 83 percent of African-Americans, said they were concerned "that
someone might attempt to physically harm Barack Obama if he's the
Democratic nominee for president," according to an ABC News/Washington
Post poll from March 2. Twenty-four percent of those polled said they
were "very concerned" about that possibility. That is putting it
politely.

The latest controversy centered on a depiction of Obama in the cross
hairs of a rifle used that appeared on the cover of Georgia's Roswell
Beacon newspaper. The controversy focused on the image, though the
story, which included interviews with several white supremacists
threatened by Obama's candidacy, reflected a deeper reality.

Thomas Stevenson, a carpenter who lives near Atlanta, told the
newspaper, "Some idiot out there's going to put a bullet in that
silver-tongued devil and then there'll be a race war. There are some
in our movement who are preparing for war, even praying for it."

The Beacon was heavily criticized for the image, and the local Holiday
Inn announced it would stop doing business with the paper. The
newspaper's publisher, John Fredericks, defended the story, saying,
"Good, bad or ugly, we tell the truth."

As the African-American presidential candidate who has come closest to
the nomination in U.S. history, Obama received Secret Service
protection last year at the earliest date ever in a presidential
campaign.

After receiving information that caused him concern over Obama's
safety in April 2007, Sen. Dick Durbin said that he approached
congressional leaders to discuss Obama's security situation. "I knew
the crowds were large & but some of the other information given to us,
unfortunately, I think, raised a concern among many of Obama's
friends," Durbin told reporters.

And Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff soon authorized the
protection, which consists of three shifts working eight hours each to
cover Obama 24 hours a day.

Mark Potok, a civil rights expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center,
has been tracking the views of white supremacists for years.

Last February, he noticed an increase in racist attacks and
threatening remarks about Obama on the Internet.

"There is plenty of unpleasant stuff out there, "N***** this, N*****
that" and it's been going on for the better part of six months," he
said.

But since then, the level of vitriol has remained stable. "I don't
think there's been any big increase in the kinds of things we're
seeing," Potok says, adding that many of the white supremacist sites
know that they're being monitored and users tend to be careful about
posting violent threats. It is the lone wolf that is the major factor.

Potok passes along violent threats to the Department of Homeland
Security, including a recent e-mail sent to the Southern Poverty Law
Center that warned: "ATTENTION, IF OBAMA BECOMES PRESEDANT I WILL KILL
HIM MYSELF MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT."

Prominent white supremacists, including former Louisiana state
representative and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, have
condemned Obama in subtler terms.

Duke recently issued a statement denouncing Obama for his ties to the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the candidate's former pastor who stirred up
controversy with his conspiracy theories, and because his "ultimate
loyalty" lies with "his fellow African-Americans."

While previous African-American presidential candidates, such as the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, were the target of racist threats, they were not
campaigning in the age of the Internet and they were not nearly as
successful as Obama.

The real possibility that an African-American could win the White
House in November, along with the anonymity of the Web, which lends
itself to expressing extreme views, has galvanized a certain segment
of the population, explains John G. Geer, political science professor
at Vanderbilt University.

"Is Obama being black raising security issues, the answer is,
unfortunately, yes," he says. "Because there are more people out
there, hate groups who are going to make certain kinds of statements
and claims that will alert the Secret Service to be on their guard."

"There is a portion of the population who will be very unhappy about
Obama, not due to his policies but simply because he's black, and
there will be even more of an increase in these racist views as the
general election rolls around."

In addition to the hate spouted by extremists, race has become an
issue for the candidate in other, more subtle ways.

In exit polls taken after the recent West Virginia primary, two in 10
white voters said the race of the candidate was a factor in their
vote, second only to the numbers in the exit poll in Mississippi.
Sixteen percent of white voters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North
Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky and Oregon say that race was an important
factor in their vote, according to an ABC News analysis of exit polls
from those states.

Obama recognized that race had been an issue in the campaign,
particularly after the South Carolina primary, during his speech on
race in March. He acknowledged the country's racial stalemate but
asserted that "Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and
white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond
our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single
candidacy particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own."

One Obama supporter, the first elected African-American mayor of
Macon, Ga., knows all too well about being targeted by racists.

The day after he was elected in 1999, Jack Ellis says he "was out
thanking voters on the street and I reached out to shake a white
gentleman's hand. And he looked in my eye and said, 'A n***** will
never be my mayor.' I told him, 'I will be the mayor of all the
people, including you.' The last time that happened was in the Army,
and I hit the guy in the nose."

Ellis also received notes laced with violent threats, and racists
threw bricks through windows of his campaign office and tossed trash
on his lawn.

"The racism was more severe than I anticipated, and it jolted me that
it could be so blatant, that some people couldn't get beyond it," he
says. "There are a percentage of white people in this state and
elsewhere who cannot bring themselves to vote for a [black]
candidate."

Ellis, 62, remembers the days of segregation when he was forced to use
water fountains labeled "colored," and he believes Obama will be able
to bridge the gaps.

"If race is a dominant part of the campaign, and it seems to be
becoming part of it every day, you can't ignore it," he says, "but you
need to look for people who are right-thinking and who can move beyond
it." With the new connection to another "Preacher", a white Catholic
priest, there are those that are totally convinced Obama and his wife
are both anti-white activists. Truth or not that feeling is stirring
hatred among many.