Much has been made about the fact that Barrack Obama, the son of a white American mother and a Kenyan Muslim father is the first African-American major party presidential candidate in the nation’s history and over the debate about whether the Christian Barrack Hussein Obama is a Muslim or not.

One could argue that actress Charlize Theron who was actually born in (southern ) Africa to two (southern) African parents and is now a citizen of the U.S., has more claim than Obama — whose mom was after all a European-American — to being an African-American. But apparently if Obama chooses to be a black and an African-American, then that is what he is. Fine with me. But then I assume that violinist Itzhak Perlman, who was born in Israel — which is part of northern Asia — can choose to be an Asian-American?

Interestingly enough, we could have had a presidential election campaign this year with two African-American major party presidential candidates. And I’m not talking here about Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, or Alan Keyes.

Remember former Senator George Allen from Virginia? You don’t have to be a veteran Republican political strategist to speculate that with his relative youth, name recognition, experience as a governor, strong conservative credentials, a “sunny” Reagan-like demeanor, Allen had an excellent chance of becoming the GOP’s presidential nominee this year — if not for that infamous Macaca incident.

It seems that Allen learned about “Macacas” from his mother, Henrietta Lumbroso, who was born in Tunisia, which is part of Africa, to a Sepharadic-Jewish family, which makes the Christian Allen according to Jewish religious law a Jew (for the Muslims it’s the father who is the determining factor).

Sounds to me that not unlike the case of Obama, Allen could have chosen to call himself an African-American and would have been “accused” of being a Jew. And if one considers his southern pride, he could have been seen as the first African-American/Jewish/Redneck candidate. Could have been a colorful muti-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious Back-from-Africa election campaign.