I was running in place on the elliptical trainer (the kind of activity that would seem to imply that the evolution of the species had reached a dead end, or was, perhaps, moving backwards), listening to the Rail and Road Report on NY1 when I heard: “And if you’re taking the Taconic, there are reports of some black guys out there so you want to be careful.”

Sure, I thought: black guys on the state parkway. That would be scary. Set phasers on stun. Until I realized that the reporter had said black ICE, a special and treacherous feature of East Coast winter driving.

It was one of those subliminally racist moments, the kind they sang about in Avenue Q. Race has been in the air a lot of late, thanks in part to the candidacy of Barack Obama; the Clintons have opted for a subtle approach in reminding people that the man isn’t white (Bill mentioning Jesse Jackson in South Carolina, Hillary digging in on Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement in the last debate) while the Swift Boat types on the right are already roiling the internet waters with rumors that he’s a closet Muslim (his middle name is Hussein, you know). And did we mention that he was black?

One of the reasons Obama’s victory in Iowa was such a stunner is that the state is so damned white, many pundits thought voters would follow suit. And after Hillary’s victory in New Hampshire those same dispensers of conventional wisdom said see? We told you. But since then, as he has romped to victory in 11 primaries and counting, winning support among whites of all ages, and both sexes, a lot of us have held our collective breath. Could it be that a sizable number of Americans really just don’t care anymore?

I have no particular expertise here. I grew up in a couple of small towns in Northern California that were probably 95% white. The few black families there lived in their own communities, outside of town (and you can imagine what the less enlightened townsfolk called those communities) and I didn’t really encounter a lot of blacks until I moved to San Francisco, and then Oakland, and now Brooklyn — where the neighborhood I live in is still majority black (though growing whiter by the day). I am still subject to unconscious race reaction, making a note to myself when everyone on the bus, save me, is black.

But my kids, who grew up in the same cities mentioned above, are coming from a different place entirely. When my son told me about his friends at his Brooklyn middle school, he never mentioned what color they were ( don’t think it registered), and I was always surprised to meet these black, brown and Asian kids. Our daughter, who was born in Paraguay, identifies herself as non-white and left a mosh-pit slam-dancing party last month “because everybody was so white.” She likes to give me a hard time for having only dated white girls.

Sharon Begley wrote an enlightening piece in Newsweek entitled How Your Brain Looks at Race. Evolutionary scientists let us off the hook by saying: some racial reaction is hardwired. Early man didn’t wander far and when he encountered people who looked different than him, they generally wanted to kill him. But time, and experience, can override that wiring.

“Many whites who profess to be race-blind unconsciously associate dark skin with negative traits and ideas (evil, failure, dangerous), and light skin with positive ones (joy, love, peace), shows an assessment called the Implicit Association Test,” writes Begley. “When white Americans see photos flashed so quickly that they can be detected only subliminally, the amygdala, which signals ‘Watch out!,’ is significantly more active in response to black than white faces. If the photos appeared long enough to be processed consciously, however, the amygdala quieted down and the rational, thoughtful prefrontal cortex perked up. You could practically hear the cortex telling the amygdala to pipe down and stop being a racist jerk.”

Over the next eight months I suspect we will experience something like this, collectively, as the nation tries to wrap its mind around the reality of a black party nominee (not to mention a black president). It may get treacherous at times, and downright slippery, but I think, in the evolutionary sense, we are moving in the right direction.

I suddenly recalled being in high school and trying to leave some literature about Shirley Chisholm (a black congresswoman who ran for president in 1972) at a barbershop in Auburn, California. The barber responded by taking a rifle down from the wall. Chisholm is dead now — but I bet you anything that barber is, too. In fact, it’s probably not even a barbershop anymore. For all I know they sell candles there now, the kind you’re supposed to light instead of cursing the darkness.

MSNBC’s broadcast of last night’s Democratic presidential candidate’s debate was the second most-watched programin its time slot. With 7.9 million viewers it was bested only by American Idol , making it the most watched televised debate of this season and the most watched program in the cable net’s history.

That last ain’t saying much, of course. Back when I was writing about the media for Salon, I would often hear from Brian Williams, who was then hosting the network’s ten pm news hour, just because I mentioned him in my column. A hundred thousand viewers was a big night for him; it was the Lonely Guy’s network, a comforter for political wonks who liked to curl up in front of its news shows with a box of chow fun and a cold can of ginger ale.

Cable news has been enjoying a huge spike in ratings this year, thanks in part to the surprising rise of Obama and the protracted fall of Hillary Clinton. I was flying to California last Thursday, during the Texas debate on CNN, and at least half of the seat-back TVs were tuned to that debate as well. (The others were watching college hoops.) Arguably, any flight from NY to SF is probably not a representative cross-section of the electorate, and it was Jet Blue, not Jet Red — but still, voters (and viewers) are undeniably fired up, as the man says. No wonder the GOP is worried.

Last night’s was the 20th Democratic debate of this political season and though I had resolved not to watch one more, I couldn’t help myself. I had told one of my students earlier that the only way HRC could change the course of events would be to pull out a gun and shoot her opponent on stage, and while things never quite reached that level, it was far from the hand-holding successful therapy session the Texas debate had been. In the evening’s most bizarre moment, Clinton even quoted a Saturday Night Live skit which made fun of the press for kowtowing to Obama (“Save me, Tina Fey, save me!”). But this time nobody laughed.

As much as I love a good fight, I found this last stand rather grim. It reminded me of the second act of Groundhog Day. Bill Murray long ago realized that he will live this day over and over but now that he has hustled every available woman in town and even tried killing himself, it is no longer fun. Hearing Clinton accuse Obama of abandoning 15 million Americans with his health care plan is just this side of waking up to Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You, Babe” for all eternity.

Their revels now are ended. Though Clinton didn’t pull a piece she did (as promised) hit the senator from Illinois with everything but the kitchen sink. Her accusation that he failed to chair hearings into the military’s handling of the war in Afghanistan may have some traction (the Clinton-friendly Salon thought it was worth a story), even though Obama admitted it and even said he was too busy running for president. (Oh, that old honesty trick!) Then she tried to snaggle him with the Farrakhan endorsement, which again only resulted in Obama saying he rejected and denounced the Nation of Islam’s leader. Now what?

The elephant boy picture that someone in her camp sent to Matt Drudge seems to have backfired, unless it was merely intended to remind people that he is black. That job will soon fall to Republicans (some of whom don’t even know how to pronounced “Kumbiya”) though they’ll need more than a turban to make people care.

Hillary Clinton could take acting lessons from Julie Christie. For anyone who saw last night’s Academy Awards got a glimpse of the latter leading lady’s internal struggle with her emotions when the Oscar went to Marion Cotillard for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. (You know how Americans love Piaf. Rice Piaf.)

Cameras were trained on all the nominees — a dirty trick the Academy does, but a way of making sure that nominated performers never forget that it was their acting skills that bought them their seat — and when the long-shot Cotillard was announced you could see Christie’s face go through something like Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s stages of grieving — you know, denial, anger, depression, ending in acceptance. There was a nanosecond (check your Tivo) where you could see the horror: “Great, give it away to some French bitch no one has ever heard of, that’s fine, I’ll just come back the next time you have a perfect role for an aging screen diva.” And then that full-throated, wide-smiling moment where the English icon acknowledged the work and the craft and the magic that brings us all together.

How much you want to bet that she went home and kicked her cat?

Hillary has her own arriviste to contend with, of course, and resorted to some histrionics herself over the weekend to try and wrestle back the limelight from Obama. (I don’t know how you wrestle light, but I think there is a CGI award for that.) First she accused him of misrepresenting her position on NAFTA in some flyers being distributed in Ohio, saying “Shame on you, Barack Obama!”. Then she made fun of the Hope-monger for the messianic nature of his rallies, riffing on “celestial choirs” and Obama’s “magic wand”. (If despair and cynicism were a winning platform, Dick Cheney would be running.)

Maybe she is in the final throes herself, moving through the anger and denial to accept the very real possibility that she will be called upon to play a supporting role in the big blockbuster coming this fall. As Jon Stewart noted last night, “Normally when you see a black man or a woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty.” All hands on deck!

Besides, as the New York Times reminded us this morning, the expression “a heartbeat away from the presidency” might never be truer than it would be under Obama. Assassination rumors were circulating before the primary in South Carolina (a long-time political reporter in DC said when he heard about the backwash, “I wonder if the Clintons started that chatter?”) and it was one of the first questions Michelle Obama raised with her husband before he ran. Just last week a friend forwarded me a story about the Secret Service relaxing security at an Obama rally in Dallas. According to the Dallas police chief, the very people charged with guarding Obama told cops to stop searching bags and having people walk through metal detectors, I guess due to their great track record of protecting people in Dallas. Sounds like one of those paranoid political thrillers that Americans like about as much as Piaf.

Couples counselors see this scenario all the time: A couple comes to them say 18, 19 times. First few months there is a lot of old garbage hauled out. That old girlfriend that keeps calling. The line of credit she opened without telling him. And would it kill you to pick your gym clothes up off the bathroom floor?

But at some point the old barbs don’t work anymore. One party decides that he or she is done and the tried and true insults just don’t get the same reaction that they used to.

So it seemed to me watching last night’s Democratic debate. It was for the most part an amicable affair; if as reported Clinton’s camp had been warring over how hard to come at Obama, the nicer side seemed to have won — most of the time. And when the non-issue of Obama plagiarizing words from a supporter’s speech came up, and Hillary tried to hit him with a late, lame shot (calling it “change you can Xerox”), the crowd groaned and her opponent shook his head. He didn’t care anymore. He was so over her.

And small wonder, given estimates that HRC must win very decisively (ie, by more than 10%) in TX and OH to stay in the hunt. The nomination is now his to lose. And though her closing remarks were truly altruistic and brought the crowd to its feet, some such as Chris Matthews saw them as valedictory, like the scene where the hero does something really noble because he knows he’s not coming back. (For those who missed it, most of the questions posed to the candidates had been substantive ones regarding health care, immigration, the state of the economy and other hot-button issues. But the last, from CNN moderator Campbell Brown was a big meatball of a slow pitch: “I’m wondering if both of you will describe what was the moment that tested you the most, that moment of crisis.” (She did not get to ask them if they were a color, what color they would be.)

Obama actually fumbled this one, offering a precis of his life (single mom, absent dad, bad choices, call to service) that sounded more like a Hollywood pitch than a defining-moment moment. Hillary romped, first going for self-pity and sympathy — “Well, I think everybody here knows I’ve lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life” (huge applause) — before putting some serious spin on it by recalling watching limbless Iraqi war veterans limping their way into a hospital in San Antonio. “You know,” she concluded, ” the hits I’ve taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country.”

She knocked it out of the park, proving if nothing else that the old girl still has some serious game. Obama did not look too concerned, though. In his mind I think he may already be out the door, looking at apartments. Perhaps he’ll ask her to join him as partners — strictly business, of course — when this messiness is over. She did, after all, take his hand in front of everybody and say, “Whatever happens, we’re going to be fine.”

Isn’t it great when therapy works? Makes up for those other clients who are in so much denial.

There’s an interesting piece by Kate Zernike in today’s Times on The Charisma Mandate. Presidential historians including Robert Cato and Doris Kearns Goodwin opine on the record of such orators as FDR and LBJ — who, when he wasn’t in front of the country on TV defending a war he hardly believed in could speechify with conviction. Or at least enough conviction to get the job (ie, the Civil Rights Act) done and move others to follow his lead, which is sort of the point.

The subtext, or pretext, for the article is Obama, naturally, and the criticisms coming from both Clinton and McCain that he is all talk and no experience. Or as HRC said campaigning in Texas last week, “all hat and no cattle”, which makes for a funny image: Obama in a ten-gallon hat, like Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles, who rode into town to the sounds of Count Basie’s big band. Most of the town wanted to lynch him, you may recall.

But the cattle Clinton is talking about is experience, and maybe a wonky grasp of policy. (To counter these criticisms, Obama has been slowing his stump speech down and studding it with the political equivalent of filler, saving the all-killer routine for his victory speeches.) And while the historians quoted in Zernike’s piece warn against hubris and “the cult of personality,” most allow that you need to inspire to lead. “Politics is about policy, but it’s also about giving people some kind of sense of participating in a common venture with their fellow citizens,” says Alan Wolfe of Boston College. There’s a reason they call it a mass movement: the masses have to be moved toward the mountain. And when not being paranoid, even Clinton’s supporters admit that Obama’s mountain does not look a lot different than hers. So the question is still: who can get us there?

Goodwin, who has written biographies of presidents as diverse as Lincoln and LBJ, thinks this dilemma could be settled “if you could mush Clinton and Obama together as one person” But isn’t that what a joint ticket is for? Why not Obama-Clinton? If the debate really comes down to details versus charisma, I would argue that it is easier to add details than charisma. My wife, who has had the privilege of meeting the former First Lady, swears she is dynamic in person. It just doesn’t translate so well behind the podium, or even working the town hall meeting. Bill, when he isn’t hating Obama’s guts, has to be marveling at the kid’s moves. He is the best natural politician of our time and denying it just makes you look tone-deaf.

One of my political epiphanies came many years ago. I had volunteered to help the gubernatorial race of Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, in 1982, not because I was high on Bradley (don’t know anyone who was) but because I felt guilty for not sucking it up and voting for Carter in the presidential election of 1980. (I think I voted for John Anderson, who created his own Nader effect in that race.) Reagan was now in power and giving us a very vivid picture of just how bad a GOP presidency could be. (It would take GWB to come along years later to make the Reagan years look positively utopian in contrast.) Since I was driving a taxi for a living then, and since I was friends with some pretty girl who was working as a campaign flack for Bradley, I ended up playing chauffeur to him and his campaign manager for a day in Northern California.

It was an eye-opening afternoon. We drove from house party to house party (the last and most notable of the day was held at Francis Coppola’s estate in the Napa Valley) and I watched as the well-heeled slipped checks into the mayor’s pocket and they froze for a grip-and-grin photo. He spent the time between events poring over spread sheets and making notes (this was in the day before cell phones, remember, or else he might have been raising money as he rode as well). It wasn’t until the end of the day, when we stopped at a labor rally in the East Bay and I heard an old-fashioned, red-meat, Republican-bashing party boss get up and rouse the rabble that I realized what Bradley was missing: Charisma. The man did not have a drop of it and when he rose to speak in the larger venues, people in the back of the hall turned to talk to each other.

He lost, of course. Polls put him on the fast track to being our nation’s first black governor and the fact that some voters apparently changed their minds once they got in the voting booth has come to be referred to as The Bradley Effect, which states that white people say they’ll vote for a black politician until left to their own prejudices. The Bradley Effect was evoked when Obama lost in New Hampshire but has been called into question as he has made inroads with more white voters in the following state primaries.

That whole topic is too much for one post, obviously. My takeaway from the day I spent with Tom Bradley was that nothing replaces charisma. He lost to the equally uncharismatic GOP candidate George Deukmejian at a time when Californians were just crazy for anyone who promised not to raise their taxes. (Californians, with their failing infrastructure, collapsing schools and closed libraries are still reaping the whirlwind of their civic greed.) It seemed up close that Bradley didn’t have the fire in the belly, or any other part of him. It seemed like he was running because he had been told to, or just thought that he deserved the job. And that’s no way to run a campaign.