Dinner with a family member. Talk mostly about the small subjects, but towards the end about politics. He’s pretty apolitical and working class, pays politics very little attention. But lives in a swing state, so I was curious about the vibes he was getting. Quite non-committal, cautious. Finally he interjected “I hear that Obama’s wife hates white people.” Well, I answered, that may be true, or true at least to the extent that a lot of American blacks don’t much like white people. To me, it’s much less consequential than Iraq, Iran, what might happen to American foreign policy. I don’t think Barack hates white people, and I don’t think there’s much Michelle could do about it, even it she did. He mused on that, and our talk turned elsewhere.

Note, my dinner companion didn’t come up with a false rumor, that Obama’s a secret Muslim, or communist, or whatever. What he had heard sounded, to someone who has followed the campaign closely, fairly plausible. It surely wouldn’t be the first time that someone with racial animosity slept in the White House on a regular basis. And it could be argued that the state of race relations in the country marches to its own engines– and the feelings of the First Lady have no real influence on them. Or that, given the relative power wielded by whites and blacks in America, no one would notice the difference if Michelle really did hate whites. That’s essentially what I think: all things being equal, I would  vote for the candidate whose wife definitely did not hate whites. But the issue really falls very low on the decision-making scale. Doubtful that the mass of yet uncommitted white working class voters would feel the same.