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I have two observations:

First, that this is the ugliest campaign I have every observed, having watched them starting in 1956. It's an indication to me that, despite our progress, many in the US still have not put aside racial divisions. Although Americans of African ancestry are now accepted in every other walk of life, the Presidency of the country is a new, and ultimate level, which some find difficult to accept. Hopefully, not enough to prevent Obama's election.

Second, that there are few, if any, speeches of contemporary politicians so concise and worthy of remembering that they would placed on a wall in their entirety so that we would remember them.

Agreed. It's the sorriest political campaign yet!
Yet it shouldn't have been a surprise in view of what has happened to the USA during the last 7-8 years.

Racism is still very much a part of most USA citizens. The only problem is, it's more sophisticated now with the national news media covering it up.

Jon, You have really accomplished something that the established hidden lies and the racist and bigots did not anticipate and that is, you have revealed it for all the world to see.

For that, the entire nation (those that want a change, of course) should thank you.

I REALLY do not want to sound callous, I KNOW that every death in Iraq hurts every bit as much as each death in past wars, but I really think that people should have realized that Americans would die when we invaded Iraq. The few thousand deaths we have had are extraordinarily small compared to past conflicts. In WWI millions of troops died in single battles stretched over weeks.

The numbers of troops dead are mounting (not to mention the Iraqi deaths). It is getting to the point where each thousand mark passed doesn't mean anything any more. But these losses are a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the World Wars.

For the young pups who still think the USA is so terribly bigoted, please name one other predominately white country on earth where a black man has a serious chance of being elected to the highest office? Those of us who remember Little Rock, Selma, Freedom Riders, Bull Conner and a hundred other battles know what progress has been made. There will always be a few haters left. Leave them to their own legion of misery.

Win or lose, I am proud Barack Obama has a fair chance of election. What a way to start the new century.

I also agree. The current campaign is sad. The terror and fear that have been created in what should be rational human beings is somewhat frightening. I watched the news videos on McCain's town meeting and could not believe the irrational thinking that I was seeing. This is the type of campaigning that causes people to stop using common sense and use emotions to make poor decisions. We are embarking on a possible history-making event to prove that we are a nation of people created equally under God. It scares me to think that the ideas and fears created in this campaign could cause an irrational individual to become another Lee Harvey Oswald or James Earl Ray. This I would lay at the feet of McCain and Palin.

Foxtrot and Gary, 100% agree. I have to admit to a sort of naivet茅 in that I didn't think such racism existed in the US still - the ugliness is revealed by the campaign, and it only makes it clear that the last of this kind of ignorance and hate needs to be eradicated forever. We as a nation are held back from progress by pea-brains who think they could utter such nonsense and get away with it. Freedom of speech is great, but if you are a person who believes that skin color actually means a darn thing, then you are an idiot and need to shut up.

The US is changing, and we need to confront the wrongs of our past and present NOW, before it's too late to make amends.

I think everyone this campaign is the worst ever should go back and do some reading about previous campaigns. Some of them at the beginning of the republic were full of awful personal attacks, things that would land you in court today.

And I remember parts of campaigns in the 60s and 70s that were pretty vile.

Doesn't anyone remember Nixon? His campaign in 1968 started the trend towards selling a candidate as though he was a box of soap. Read Joe McGinnis's, "The Selling of the President 1968."

I think everyone who thinks this campaign is the worst ever should go back and do some reading about previous campaigns. Some of them at the beginning of the republic were full of awful personal attacks, things that would land you in court today.

And I remember parts of campaigns in the 60s and 70s that were pretty vile.

Doesn't anyone remember Nixon? His campaign in 1968 started the trend towards selling a candidate as though he was a box of soap. Read Joe McGinnis's, "The Selling of the President 1968."

timohio (#8), you are correct about early campaigns. I'm not old enough to remember them. And, of course, there was Nixon's well-known campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate in 1950. That was before I was interested in politics, if not quite before my time altogether. Also, I was thinking only of presidential elections. I'm sure there are very many examples of nasty Congressional and Senate elections, not to mention local elections.

Foxtrottango1 wrote "It's the sorriest political campaign yet". As it is appropriate to this blog, I can only suggest that you read about the presidential campaign of 1860, that elected Lincoln. You might gain a better understanding of what constitutes a really sorry and vicious campaign.
Tennesseebadger had it right. It is unfair to compare the United States, or any other nation, to some standard of perfection. Nations are composed of human beings, and like all individual human beings, should be judged on the basis of how they compare to other people, not according to whether or not they are perfect. On that basis, in what other predominately white nation, England, France, Italy, Canada, any European nation, is there any serious chance of a black person being elected prime minister or president, at any time in the next decade? So if shame is required, is it the USA that should feel the most shame, among all these nations?

tatra999 (#10), France has a president who is half Hungarian. North africans make up a fraction of the population in France comparable to the fraction of the US population with african ancestry. I can imagine France someday electing a president who is half north african. I expect the fraction of french citizens of black african descent is rather small.

You are choosing very interesting places to go on your trip, Jon! I enjoy reading your insights, and the interviews of the various people you meet.

(Also, a request for the mods -- please turn the italics tag off!)

I will add to my previous post that some well-known USonian (i.e. American) blacks moved to France because it was a more hospitable environment than the United States, notably Josephine Baker and James Baldwin.

Jon, just a quick correction. You refer to Senator Obama as black. Technically, Senator Obama is bi-racial. This point may seem minor, but, for all the bigots in our country Barack Obama is as much white as he is black.

I'm sorry to say this as an English man, but I suspect that if someone of African (or, more likely, Indian subcontinent) descent stood for Prime Minister, then the colour of their skin would play a definite factor, and it would probably be more against than for them.

Others make the point made by Gordon..(#14) from time to time, but it's a meaningless point. Practically all American blacks are mixed race; very few have pure African parentage. Although Obama transcends race in a way that most other black politicians do not, he is nevertheless perceived as "black" in American society. I am reminded of a statement on that subject by the playwright August Wilson in an interview, who said (paraphrasing), "society treats me as black; my whole experience is that of a black man; I am black."

Some half-black "blacks" experience the effects of this classification to a lesser degree through success and wealth (an example being Tiger Woods), but most do not.

Lincoln didn't fight for democracy any more than he fought for the abolition of slavery: slavery would have died out in another few years regardless of any civil war for the simple reason that it wasn't cost effective. The Royal Navy (later joined by US navy) intercepted so many slave ships that a new slave was costing more than a new BMW would today. Add in the food costs and basic medical treatment a slave needed (you don't let 20,000 bucks of slave die for fun) and it worked out more expensive to keep slaves than use machines run by wage-slaves (look at the conditions of 'free' brits in mills in the UK in the 1860's). Neither could many of the confederate soldiers at Gettsyburg afford slaves.

Lincoln fought the civil war to stop the southern states (more or less legally) leaving the union. The confederates fought for the right to self determination. It worth pointing out that anti-slavery Britain initially favoured the confederacy.

Slavery is a very PC excuse for the war (rather like WMD) but there's very little truth in it.

"Agreed. It's the sorriest political campaign yet! Yet it shouldn't have been a surprise in view of what has happened to the USA during the last 7-8 years"

You mean two african-americans being promoted to the third highest office in the USA?

It is a sorry campaign but its taken two candidates to make it this way and the dems have played just as dirty as the republicans.

"France has a president who is half Hungarian."

is this supposed to be some sort of accomplishment? almost all american are a mix of ethnic backgrounds. in america im just white, but by your definition i'm irish, english, scottish, french, german, russian, czech, and dutch. one of the first assignments american elementary school children recieve is to go home and ask their parents what countries their ancestors came from, and then the next day in class the teacher marks on a map with pins all the countries that making up the american "melting pot." diversity of the kind you speak of is a basic premise of american life

Gary, quite a few number of blacks did indeed move to France, but you must take historical context into account. France did not have the same kind of history with blacks as America did, and it is not devoid of its own unique racial tensions (as its very recent race riots - involving young Muslims - demonstrate)

#20. 'France did not have the same history with blacks as America did'

Really? France had colonies in half of Africa (which is why the official language in so many African nations is French). They used slaves both in africa & in their colonies in the Americas (much of the Southern USA - slave country- was French) and slave ships sailed from French ports long after Britain banned the trade.

To draw an analogy from the great battle of 1863 to the election this year is very clever.
It has taken nearly 150 years for America since Lincolns emancipation proclamation and the war that was fought around it to see fit to perhaps elect a black man.
Mcain I feel knows this will be a mommentus decision and has tried to fight a just campaign without playing a race issue .I have been lucky enough to visit the states on many occasions even getting to Gettysburg last year and one thing that has struck me is an underlying mistrust of the average white American of the black community, and to stand possiblbly behind a black president will be perhaps the greatest change the world has ever seen.
I sincerly hope America chooses Obama though I doubt it will as a secret ballot is exactly that and although many may say they support the democrat when push comes to shove it may be a step too far to vote for a blackman sadly

#19 - Exactly - so you've just proved the point you were trying to refute.

The fact that Amercians are from immigrant heritage makes it completely unremarkable that someone of an immigrant background could get into power.

The majority of French are not from immigrant backgrounds and so for someone, who is half hungarian, to be voted president IS an accomplishment of sorts.

#21

I think the point is that in recent history (the Paris race riots accepted) France has not had a bad record on civil rights. America on the other hand had an apartheid (in all but name) regime until the 60's.

#24. Thats not what the Algerians say. They strongly claim that they are denied jobs, good housing etc because of their race. I can't remember many black men running for President in France either although I can think of a neo-nazi who did rather well.

Equally SOME states in the US had virtual appartheid until the 60's but most didn't. Remember Lincolns plan was to repatriate all the freed slaves back to Africa too.

The commenters debating the merits of a half-hungarian French leader have touched on a very significant difference between race in America v.s. Europe.

In America, we are all mutts of some kind, a mix of ancestry from many different countries. For this reason, people get lumped into larger ethnic groups.

The U.S. has a much more diverse population than Europe. People come from every country in the world, not just certain sections of continents. This diversity can and has caused racial tensions, most famously in the 60s, but also in the past with Japanese internment camps, "no Irish need apply" signs and so on. However, I think it is also important to note that people keep coming. And they keep coming because there is opportunity here despite those problems. Greater opportunity and more openess than they might find elsewhere. And because of that, we also have some of the most diverse, influential, and varied culture in the world.

And racial tensions do not belong to one country or continent. They exist all over the world, in America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Which ones are "worse" is a matter of personal experience and perception. What is worse for one can beter for another, it's just important to recognize that they are different.

Finally, it is a very big deal that we will probably elect Obama, but that doesn't negate all of the other existing racial problems, or the fact that if he is elected all the U.S. senators will be white. I personally don't think a half-hungarian president has quite the same impact, and I do think countries such as France and England need to do much more to get their minority populations involved in politics. You may not have minority populations as large, but I can't even think of a French/English equivalent to Powell or Rice, nevermind Obama.

It isn't just Gettsburg kids who memorize the speech. Growing up in South Carolina, all junior high kids in public school had to memorize it, if you had a good social studies teacher. My daughter was pleasantly surprised that we, her parents, knew it by heart. Of course, since we now live in Illinois, we know she will be memorizing it soon enough.