The liberal media jumped on the McCain ad comparing barack-o-bama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton with typical passive-aggressive elan--suggesting that a question that no one appears to be asking--was the ad racist?

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation’s voters say they’ve seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not.

I personally thought the ad somewhat risky, not for its alleged racism, but because it could be construed as a personal attack. Nevertheless, its pretty clear that the ad targets a tender spot--all this talk of Obama's rock star qualities was always going to be a problem sooner or later. The country doesn't elect rock stars to protect its interests. The survey result strongly suggests that we're going to see more overt criticism of Obama's cult of personality, with all its fascist connotations.

The flip side of the coin is good news too--Obama's latest attempt to fire a full spread of race phasers has bounced harmlessly off the public's shields.

Obama’s comment that his Republican opponent will try to scare people because Obama does not look like all the other presidents on dollar bills was seen as racist by 53%. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree.

The Democrats, and particularly the Obama campaign, have been relying pretty heavily on the accusation of racism to stifle criticism of their candidate, but clearly that isn't going to fly.

We might just have a real presidential campaign afterall where barack-o-bama actually has to talk about policy in less than nebulous terms. Bad for him, but good for the country.