And Incidentally, He's Black

During the Iowa post-game one of the pundits, Juan Williams, interrupted the round table chatter with the observation that this is a historic moment, an African-American candidate has become the front-runner for one of our major political parties, winning a mostly white state.

Oh ... yeah. That's a good point. That aspect of Obama's win is undeniably part of the story. But the biggest part of the story might be the fact that it's NOT the biggest part of the story. Obama won Iowa and became the front runner because he did a better job crafting a message that connected with the voters - who had a clear choice among other alternatives, some of whom represented the "old guard" of the Democrat Party.

And that's the real news. Gone for good, perhaps, are the days of African-Americans being yet another constituency that must be brokered. Gone are the days of Reverend Al or Jesse assembling a 7% coalition of ragged liberals (black and white), which they then take to the convention as collateral for some concessions in the party platform - using race as a foil in an act of cynical extortion.

The Old Media, the Boomer Media, doesn't fathom this. Watching Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell and Joe Biden the rest of them on TV last night it occurred to me that their template has been shattered, the same tedious perspective they've used on race and politics since the 60s. Race is a part of the story, but it's not the simplistic (and ultimately, insulting) formula they've always applied in the past.

At this moment Barack Obama, unmodified, is a strong and serious force in American politics, on his own terms, in the face of the old guard.