The Freedom Center sees as part of its Vision to be a safe house for dialog on issues related to freedom.  Such a discussion — given our national history — must sooner or later acknowledge that race (or more specifically, the racial divide separating blacks and whites) is ever-present as a subtext in virtually every aspect of society:  political, social, economic, educational, and cultural.

With a candidate of color seeking the White House as the nominee of a major political party, race is no longer a hidden issue.  Increasingly, it is beginning to shape the national conversation about who shall lead the United States in the next Administration.

The latest indication that race continues to sharply divide whites and blacks in the U.S. comes from an Associated Press-Yahoo News survey conducted in association with Stanford University. It shows that a substantial portion of white Americans still harbor negative feelings toward blacks. It shows that blacks and whites disagree tremendously on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault it is and how much influence blacks have in politics.

One result is that Barack Obama’s path to the presidency is steeper than it would be if he were white. In fact, the AP report, the poll suggests that racial prejudice could cost Obama up to 6 percentage points this fall — a significant deficit to overcome in light of the fact that the last two presidential elections were decided by much smaller margins.

The AP-Yahoo News poll of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27-Sept. 5, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. It was designed to plumb people’s racial attitudes, and particularly how those attitudes affect voting.

According to the AP, the survey used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, of Menlo Park, Calif., including questions about how well words like “friendly” or “violent” describe blacks; having respondents type sensitive answers into computers, which tends to make them more honest; and using brief flashes of faces of people of different races to detect biases that respondents may not be aware they have.

Stanford University political scientist Paul Sniderman said that in today’s society, racial prejudice “is a deep challenge, and it’s one that Americans in general, and for that matter, political scientists, just haven’t been ready to acknowledge fully.”

For minority candidates such as Obama, he said, “there’s a penalty for prejudice, and it’s not trivial.” If the presidential contest remains close, he said, racial prejudice “might be enough to tip the election.”

New York Times editorial writer Brent Staples looks at the race issue by suggesting that one reason Obama’s candidacy is stirring racial feelings is the legacy of black subservience — a remnant of the time when slavery was sanctioned throughout the South.  Seen from this perspective, Staples writes, whites may be uneasy because they are conditioned to think of African Americans as being under the collective thumb of white political and cultural culture.

“But the discomfort with certain forms of black assertiveness is too deeply rooted in the national psyche — and the national language — to just disappear,” Staples writes.  “It has been a persistent theme in the public discourse since Barack Obama became a plausible candidate for the presidency.”

The dilemma facing political observers and pollsters is how to isolate race as a factor from other pressing issues in this year’s election.  By a considerable margin, voters say economic issues are at the top of their list of concerns — a worry that has intensified in the wake of the Wall Street financial breakdown.  Put another way, and more bluntly, if Obama loses to McCain, can the loss be attributed to race, in whole or in part?

What’s your view?  Is race THE issue of the 2008 election?  Is Obama’s candidacy in jeopardy due to the color of his skin, instead of his position on issues? Post a comment below.