The encouraging lesson from Obama's huge win in North Carolina and near-win in Indiana is that perhaps the fear card no longer trumps all others. The Bush presidencies were fueled by what Jonathan Alter of Newsweek recently called, "underinformed voters," explicitly voting against their own economic interests, often for reasons that were patently wrong. Remember during the last election, in survey after survey, a majority of Bush voters thought that Iraqis were responsible for 9/11.
Hillary's fuel tax scam was aimed squarely at those voters and along with the wall-to-wall Wright coverage it was assumed that they would be tricked and scared into flocking to her.
In some respects Obama's strong showing shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as it did. In poll after poll a majority of Americans said they realized that the fuel tax holiday was a political ploy and a majority also said that they personally were not overly swayed by Rev. Wright's rantings.
Interestingly, however, a majority of Americans also said that although it wouldn't sway them they thought that the Wright controversy would effect their neighbors.
It seems that all of us, not just the NPR-listening latte-swillers, think that the rest of Americans are easily duped. It seems that for now at least, in this election, all of us are paying enough attention to the issues to make an informed decision.
Hillary wasn't the only one who underestimated the hard-working Americans in the middle.
Trey Ellis is the author of "Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood."