Republicans are getting excited!

The New York Times announces today a major turning point in the presidential election year. The GOP, which had faced this season with some level of depression, now are buoyed by the idea that they'll be running against a classic liberal who wears his disdain for working folk, and the country, on his sleeve.

In a sign that the racial, class and values issues simmering in the presidential campaign could spread into the larger political arena, Republican groups are turning recent bumps in Mr. Obama’s road — notably his comment that small-town Americans “cling” to guns and religion out of bitterness and a fiery speech by his former minister in which he condemned the United States — into attacks against Democrats down the ticket.

That's when you know that a candidate has come to symbolize something that a good chunk of the country considers to be bad - when the candidate or one of his liabilities is used to create guilt by association in lower level campaigns - as we're seeing in the controversial North Carolina ad, where Reverend Wright is being used to taint democrats running for governor.

The growing Republican emphasis on Mr. Obama could also help Mrs. Clinton plead her case that she is more electable, bolstering her argument to superdelegates that Republicans are poised to pounce on her relatively untested opponent.

While the Times manages to blame Obama's problems on race in the beginning of the story's second sentence, quoted above, the topic isn't mentioned elsewhere in the story, It's a throwaway line, apparently, meant to sooth the psyches of hardcore Barackies and cover up the reality of just how flawed a candidate he is.