Sorry, but Bush had an 88% approval in nov of 01. Has nothing to do with communication skills. It's really pretty simple. The only way for a pres to go this low is to tick off people in his own party. The excess spending, the immigration fiasco, and cowtowing to the global warming nuts has done just that. Big time.
George H.W.Bush and his campaign cratered into the next 12 months after the first Saddam whacking because he couldn't string two sentences together. Otherwise we would not have Bubba Jeff as a two-termer.
You are assuming that you can personally decide what matters in life. What if you go for a job interview, and they turn you down purely because of your race? Would you say race doesn't matter in that case? What matters in life is dependent on many factors, and other people's attitudes are one of those factors that will affect you and others.
I disagree. He is a skilled orator and that counts for a lot in a personality cult like the US presidency. He was also clever to adopt the "change" slogan at a time when people were sick of 8 years of neocon BS. His anti Iraq war stance is also a good selling point. A white candidate who could mesmerize audiences with oratorical skill, had opposed Iraq from the start, and adopted a "change" slogan could also have kicked Hillary's arse. A white candidate would also not have to face the racist counter-vote. Let's face it, there are more racists in the US who will vote against Obama for being half-black (not mixed race - they would not care if he was half asian or half latino) than there are "liberals" who would vote for him for the same reason. Remember, 6-9 months ago Obama was almost down for the count. His odds were about 15:100 on Intrade.com and Hillary was a clear front-runner for the presidency, IIRC she was about 60% shoe-in. Since then he has surged. Yet his race stayed the same during that period. Clearly it was not his race that won people over, it was his performance and campaigning in the runoff with Clinton. Obama obviously got some black votes just because he's half black himself. Just like Clinton would get more votes in Arkansas or from feminists. That isn't why he won or she lost.
He won because of his race. Period. Not that everything else you say isn't somewhat true but it was the number of blacks who vote in Dem primaries coupled with the fact he carried 91% of them. And yes his race will be mitigated in a GE but in the primaries it was a huge, huge asset. For all the money he spent (3-1 over Clinton) and all the salivating media he barely out polled Clinton (if at all depending on how one counts Michigan). In fact post Wright she beat him decisively.
Arguing with PP and Triple A is an exercise in futility. If either one hit a post, it would be a meeting of the minds. Obama won for the same reason that Ron Paul attracted attention far beyond his ability to coax votes out of the power-loving Neanderthals of the Republican Party: he was strikingly direct in his assessment of just how infinitely stupid the invasion of Iraq was. Paul's speech in opposition of the war was far superior to Obama's, but he was and is in the wrong party for the message to be heard, as the last post by Triple A shows. Republicans are clueless as to why they are going to get beaten bloody this Fall. Why, I have no idea, given how blindingly obvious it is. No one, except for a few stupid fanatics who still believe we could have won that war, wanted a repeat of Vietnam. But if you read PP and Triple A and the rest of the herd of idiotic reactionaries correctly, it seems that the fanatics have taken over that party, and are determined to draw exactly the wrong lesson from their impending defeat at the polls.