Barack Obama: The race healer that wasn’t

On Nov. 4, 2008, I served as a poll watcher at Saint James United Methodist Church in Kansas City, the home base of Rev. Emanuel Cleaver II, my congressman. The workers expected a lot of voters at this overwhelmingly black polling station, and they got them. Like many of us on the right, I found some consolation in thinking an Obama presidency would ease racial tension in America. On this issue, I genuinely hoped he would succeed. He did not. In fact, Obama failed catastrophically.