According to John Heilemann, Obama isn’t doing better because of white racism. Using “anti-affirmative action lingo” is racist. Obama needs to reprise his “superb race speech in March in Philadelphia.” And what the country really needs–is to have a “conversation” about race. Reading the piece, I began to see the outlines of a grand cross-ideological bargain: Conservatives get to deny Obama the presidency, and in return liberals get to call their fellow citizens racists for the next twenty years. I’ll take the deal.