Two facts to think about. First, as Frank Rich noted in Sunday’s New York Times, a traditional media obsessed with Democrats’ ability to win “white working class voters” ignores the fact that Republicans have no African-Americans in Congress or the Senate. And nobody hosting a Sunday political talk show defines the Republican Party’s racial exclusion as a “problem,” or examines what this means for the G.O.P.'s electoral prospects. Second, since the Civil War ended in 1865, the only African-Americans to win a statewide election are Senator Edward Brooke and Governor Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, Governor Doug Wilder in Virginia, and Senators Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack Obama in Illinois. Five people in over 140 years. And yet some wonder why a path is not being cleared for Obama to waltz to the White House.