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Nothing to fear but…

Suffolk, Virginia:  Yesterday I canvassed mostly in outlying districts of Suffolk where the houses are large and the plots of land gigantic by DC standards, as well as in a well-off subdivision.  Some of this was predominantly Romney country.  What, I wondered, was on the minds of the scowling 60-70 year old white males who were so quick to slam the door once I said I was from the Obama campaign?

I got only a few hints.  They are afraid:  that the president isn’t prepared to keep up America’s defenses, that he didn’t protect our people in Libya and that America might become like Spain, where a couple sitting next to me at dinner had found the real estate market in free fall.

As a retired Foreign Service officer, I did try to counter the concern about what happened in Libya, but then I got back to my room and watched Rudi Giuliani foaming at the mouth about how any real male president would have sent in the military whether the Libyans liked it or not.  I guess he has forgotten what happened to the Marines President Reagan sent to Lebanon.  And no doubt he hasn’t checked the statistics on attacks on U.S. diplomatic posts, which are down under President Obama.

It was all too clear that the angry white men were afraid the women in the house would vote for the president.  One guy even came out on the front porch to loom over my conversation with his sister.  He had already voted for Romney. These addresses were on my list because someone there had expressed support for the President.  The door was being slammed not just to keep my ideas from getting in, but to keep the wives from coming out to hear them.

But there is something deeper and equally as disturbing going on.  The irritability of the white males was a sharp contrast with the upbeat attitude of black men and women, who I suspect will vote in unanticipated numbers.  I’m sure there are some out there disappointed in Obama, but I haven’t stumbled on any.

The man who some claimed was the harbinger of a post-racial America is driving a deep wedge between blacks and white males.  Both groups want a president who looks like them.  Of course Obama, if anyone, is it, with his white mother and his black father.  But the white males aren’t buying it.  Nor are those who live in the Tea Party houses with signs proclaiming “take our country back.”

White women and hispanics are likely to decide this contest.  They seem far less fearful and better prepared to make a judgment based on aspirations rather than fear.  That seems fitting to me, as it is fear itself that is our worst enemy.

That is what the Romney campaign is trying to excite in these waning days of what looks like a campaign they will lose.  American Family Radio is busy proclaiming that MSNBC is an Islamist television station.  Christians, they say, should want a president who shares their values, with the clear implication that Obama does not (and may not even be Christian?) but Romney does.  Gay marriage presumably has a lot to do with that.

The polls are showing the President with a narrowing edge in popular votes but an increasing likelihood of winning the electoral college handily.  But the only poll that really counts is the one taken on November 6.  I’m going back to canvasing.