One more point about Obama’s attack on Ward Connerly’s initiatives. He says they are designed to “drive a wedge between people.” The familiar idea is that conservatives are using the issue of racial preferences for political profit. But Connerly’s initiatives have been a remarkably ineffective form of wedge politics. Did Republicans do well in California in 1996 and thereafter? In Washington state in 1998? In Michigan in 2006? Plenty of voters seem capable of voting for official non-discrimination and then for Democratic candidates.