Voters see Obama's run in shades of gray

Few say that race is an issue, but his candidacy prompts introspection

As a child growing up in Durham, Lonnie Torain remembers when he would walk past a restaurant, with the warm food smelling so good, beckoning him inside. He had to walk around back to get fed.

This month Torain, 65, stepped into a voting booth in his hometown and cast his presidential ballot for another dark-skinned man, Barack Obama.

"We've been waiting a long time," Torain said. "It really made me feel good."

In North Carolina, Obama is working to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1980, and to become America's first black president.

Conversations with voters this past week show that Obama's candidacy has led voters of many backgrounds to wonder about race in America. He has given blacks and other minorities pride in his achievements, made some whites uncomfortable and led voters of many skin tones to question their own beliefs and motivations.

"Race is always going to be an issue," said Hunter Bacot, director of the Elon University poll, which surveys adults statewide on issues of society and politics. "I don't think it's going to be an issue of any significance. ... The demographics have changed so much in the last 20 years. Jesse Helms might have a hard time getting re-elected."

Race has not overtly dominated the campaign. In response to persistent questions about his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama made a high-profile speech earlier in the year about race in America. Republican candidate John McCain has not made race an issue, going so far as to ask the N.C. Republican Party in April to pull a TV ad that linked Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore to Wright and Obama.

But four decades after President Lyndon Johnson told Congress, "We shall overcome," the history of racism still weighs heavily in the Tar Heel state, where Confederate monuments populate the lawn of the state capitol and people over 50 recall segregated schools and "colored-only" water fountains.

Pierre "Pete" Fournier, a retired jack-of-all-trades who now builds birdhouses at his Kenly home, considers himself a die-hard Republican. He's 72, was a Marine in Lebanon in 1958 and calls fellow veteran and Republican presidential candidate John McCain a hero. Fournier doesn't like Obama.

"I think he's a young punk and he's arrogant," Fournier said one recent morning outside the Pine Level post office. "I'm not ready for his type for president."

What type?

"I'm not a prejudiced person, but it's really going down to it, really, a black-and-white situation," Fournier said. "Between you and me, I'd rather see a woman than him."

Fournier thinks race is an issue -- for black voters.

"They want to see a black president," Fournier said. "But we've always had a white president. I'm sure there's a lot of folks out there who're voting (for McCain) because he's white."

In southeast Raleigh, hairdresser Brandi Hunter, 28, waited for clients on a recent afternoon. She talked about the adjustable-rate mortgage she's struggling with on her house, how she gets behind on bills when fewer clients walk through the door.

'A monumental thing'

On the wall behind her hangs a poster of Obama grinning from a barber's chair. "Our time is now," the poster reads.

"Now for us as blacks, this is a monumental thing to have a black man in office," Hunter said.

Bacot, the pollster, said polls in North Carolina show that about 5 percent of respondents will acknowledge voting for someone based on race. But ask whether the respondent knows someone who'll vote on race -- often a more telling question -- and the numbers rise.