Jonah is clearly right that Reagan/Bush end of the Cold War made the presidency of foreign-policy lightweight, draft-avoiding Bill Clinton possible. And, human nature being largely self-interested, he is right that the more that Iraq looks to be moving along nicely, the easier it will be for some voters to put aside rational doubts about Obama’s capability to deal with war policy and the Middle East’s slippery characters, and vote for him. So increasing success in Iraq would be an immediate cause of Obama’s electability.

In looking for the larger reason that it now seems possible to elect a black president, when even recently it seemed unlikely, I think that the much resisted end of “welfare as we knew it,” passed under Bill Clinton, is the key. Regardless of the fact that AFDC, the main welfare program for women and children, was started in the depression to assist mostly white women who were widowed or abandoned, by the 1970s it had become a symbol of family disintegration, illegitimacy, dependence and massive, perhaps overstated transfer payments from those who worked to those who were “dependent,” often for generations. The most prominent image in the national mind, when the words “welfare mother” were used, was of a unmarried black woman with children by different men. (Even though there were always, in sheer numbers, more white users at any moment.)

When Ronald Reagan talked about the “welfare queen” buying steak at the checkout line with food stamps, no one thought he was talking about a white widow.

Ten years ago, under GOP pressure, Bill Clinton got rid of the national AFDC program, and the states began to substitute other programs, many with better incentives. These cost as much money or more and do not seem to have stemmed the problem of black (or white) out-of-wedlock childbearing, though mothers are more likely to work. Still, the disturbing stereotype has all but disappeared from the culture, and the debate over how to change behavior has lost the racial tinge that made it so contentious. The generations of liberal black politicians who had to defend those programs are no longer on the spot. That means that newer and younger black politicians, most certainly including Barack Obama, aren’t tied to defending a hated, counterproductive, massive redistribution program that had come to offend the productive classes, especially working women who could no longer afford to stay home with their own children. Even as activists lobbied to make the reality of intergenerational dependence on taxpayer support a right to which people were entitled, in fact they contributed to the stigma that got in the way of ultimate racial equality.

Obviously other things have also evolved to make it possible that a black politician could be elected president today. But without the end of welfare as we knew it, and the changes that has engendered in reality and in perception, I doubt it would be possible.