[427sharpe]

Obama may see her as a means to consolidate minority support, but I think he is failing to consider the damage people like her can do by alienating a lot of mainstream white Americans.

I think he considered quite well. With a 30% voter turnout, he doesn't give a rats a$$ about mainstream America, white or otherwise. Open the feeding troughs, spread the Obama checks, assure no voter id system is in place to clean up the rolls and he wins. The politicians have been buying votes for decades..democrats: keep 'em poor and on subsistence level income, republicans: hyperventilate about spending discipline while running up ungodly deficits. And all the while, 'mainstream America' is too damned lazy to get off it's collective a$$ and FIX a system we all know is broken. We get the government we deserve.