Obama could lose - because he's black

Six percentage points is the price Barack Obama could pay on election day for being black. This disturbing calculation was found in a landmark poll by the Associated Press in conjunction with Yahoo and Stanford University.

The poll was designed ot probe people's racial attitudes and how those attitudes affect voting. Obama is the first black man to run on a major party ticket.

Standford University political scientist Paul Snmiderman told AP that in a close contest, racism "might be enough to tip the election."

Obama-mania, Brazil-style

Few countries have embraced the idea of the United State’s first black president as enthusiastically as Brazil, a country with one of the largest Afro-descendant populations on Earth yet where black faces remain scarce in the political arena. Obama T-shirts are everywhere while chat shows and newspaper columns are filled with talk of the 47-year-old Illinois senator.