f you are a die-hard Obama supporter, please do not send your tuxedo to the dry cleaners yet. If you live in a country other than the United States, say in Africa, do not send your agbada to the dry cleaners yet. Senator Barrack Obama could lose this thing. Yes, he could! He could lose not because his opponent Senator John McCain of the Republican Party is better than he in any sense. After all, the polls if they are any serious reliable indices, are pointing to an Obama landslide if the elections are held today. Senator Obama could lose, because he is black and, his father is Kenyan.

Senator Barrack Obama talks to the Press
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In American Politics, it has happened not once nor twice in the past but several times over. The most recent being in 1990, when a popular Los Angeles Mayor called Tom Bradley a black man, lost an election to become the governor of California. He lost, even when he was as high in the state polls as Barack Obama is today, and thus the new political vocabulary now, touted in hushed tones, in the U.S. political lexicon - "the Bradley effect." In simple terms, the Bradley effect means that as long as you are a black man running against a white man, you could wake up on the day after election to find out you have lost in spite of going to bed the previous night with high poll numbers and the pundits already proclaiming you a winner.

In normal circumstances, any nominee fighting an incumbent party with a record as bad as the Republicans now have, would as at now be readying for a landslide in November. Put it another way, if Barack Obama were to be white, his victory would by now have been a foregone conclusion. With unemployment, rate the highest since the Great Depression. With the U.S. economy a yo-yo and with Wall Street, seeing the most unstable session for many years, this would have by now been a closed sale for the challenger.

Not so yet for Obama. With every economic index so far released showing downward slope, you would think that a Democratic challenger would kick the political butts of the Republican Party as soon as the voting whistle is blown November 4 2008. Not so. You will be surprised. Quietly, pundits have begun to see the ugly hands of mild but dangerous racism rearing its head every here and there.

Endorsements from unexpected quarters are pouring in, in favor of Barack Obama. The highly respected Los Angeles Times, which has not endorsed any candidate since 1972 when it endorsed Nixon for president, has endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States in the forthcoming U.S. presidential election. The paper said in an editorial "Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be." Following on the heels of the Times is the Chicago Tribune, which for 161 years had not endorsed any candidate running on the Democratic Party's Ticket. It said in a glowing tribute to Obama, "we have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready."

Just this morning, Barak Obama received one of the highest sought after endorsements of the election season - that of General Colin Powell. According to General Powell, "I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change and that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama…"

As we write, Obama is running very high in most polls. The New York Times has him at more than 10 percentage point over rival McCain. The Washington Post as well as the CBS News, the CNN all have it going for Obama if the elections are held today. In Virginia a traditional Republican voting state, 53 percent of possible voters polled say they are, for Obama and 43 per cent for Senator John McCain. This scenario, has until now been a political unthinkable, for a state that has not voted Democratic since 1964. As is in Virginia, so it seems to be in Florida. There, Obama is at a vantage 51 per cent, while McCain has 41 per cent. As of today, this race is Obama's to lose in the eyes of most Obama supporters.

None, except those who live in the moon should be surprised. The American economy is in a downward spiral. Unsold new homes the real measure of the performance of the U.S economy is at its height. People are losing their jobs in droves. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking their daily tolls (gulping $10 billion a month) as president George Bush's approval rating is hovering around dangerous, parlous, and piteous mid-twenties.

In terms of organization, Obama is doing better than McCain. No wonder, he has been raking in donations. In a just released fund-raising stats, Obama raised over 150 million dollar in September - the best by any candidate in U.S political history. Between now and Election Day, Senator Obama has more than 500 million dollars in his political war chest, while his opponent, Senator McCain has a paltry 84 million dollars to spend. Because of this, too, Obama is outspending McCain in every electoral quarter - more than 3 times the money the maverick senator from Arizona is spending.

Now the big question: If Obama is doing so well, why could he still lose the election? Try to blame it on whatever you want to, the answer as we observed earlier is race. Obama himself is apprehensive of this and is not resting on his oars. Because a day could mean a lifetime in politics, most people including Senator Obama himself, are urging cautious optimism. At a campaign event recently in New Hampshire, Obama displayed this palpable apprehension when he urged supporters not to be giddy or over-complacent. "Remember the two-letter word "New Hampshire'," he urged his supporters before jetting out to Hawaii to visit with his ailing maternal grandma. Yes, New Hampshire because this was a state he had been predicted to win by pundits and pollsters during the primaries only to wake up the following morning to find out he had been licked by the political machines of the Clintons.

A second but most potent is the unpredictability of man as a political animal. A kind of animal who says one thing to please the listening ears of his fellow man, may while left alone inside that polling booth, pull a lever of his choice essentially because of the color of the skin of Senator Obama as opposed to the content of his political message.

Listen to a commentator in this week's issue of Time Magazine say it loud: "Whether he wants it or not, Obama has come to personify this multicultural cosmopolitan America…." This plank of political reasoning are the thesis of a new horde of political prognosticators who down in their political 'punditing' hearts know, Obama could lose because of the color of his skin but are preparing the ground to blame it on other reasons. Fancy this: this group is now everywhere advancing a new reason, which may sound real but when thoroughly scrutinized, may not stand the test of harder prognosis.

They are advancing a dangerous theory that America is now witnessing a growing anti-immigrant climate. They opine that because there is a general resentment against the onslaught of the Chinese, the Indian, the Latin American and others, Obama may be seen as an agent who could cause an extension of that deluge of foreigners invading the geo-political space called the United States of America. They are beginning to see Obama as a man, who because of his origins, could open the borders of the U.S. to a deluge of immigrants, which will in the end obliterate the essential fabrics of the United States' political economy.

The projection of this thesis as the reason why Obama could lose is gaining traction . Conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh are falling heads over heels propagating this theory, which when critically scrutinized holds not solid waters. They are only toeing this line of reasoning to prepare the grounds to explain an Obama loss as a backlash to the fear of immigrant invasion of the U.S. political land space. Yes, that the U.S electorate pulled he lever against Obama because of their collective fear that being a man with foreign origins, voting him could be an invitation to foreigners to seize the United States fledgling economy. If this happens, let none be fooled. It is only a smokescreen. The only reason to explain an Obama loss if it happens on November 4, is simple.The Tom Bradley effect.