Nineteenth Century seers felt that one should change the course of one’s life every seven or so years. What time span for change would these bearded geezers advise in our current dizzying, digital era – seven minutes, perhaps?

And yet, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Take the flap and furor over Senator Obama’s “elitist” speech. His campaign took a double spin even as his off-the-record musings were being reported. Talk about “viral.”

Say something mildly contentious – or, even better, moderately salacious – nowadays, and you’ll be racking up more hits than you care to count on YouTube. No wonder political discourse is so calculated – and trivial.

We have become more interconnected than the Founding Fathers ever dreamed possible back when they were chiseling out a constitution in the teahouses of Virginia and Massachusetts.

But even then there was an issue that those revered gentlemen preferred not to grapple with. What Senator Obama was really indicating in his speech is that a minority of white people will still not vote for a black man.

The question is: how large is the minority and what effect will it have on the election in November?

Lest you think I’m including in some kind of intellectual exercise, consider this: is there anyone amongst us who doesn’t know at least one person who will not vote for a person of color?

I’m not talking about your Bull Connors, whip and water – cannon type of Southern segregationist, rather just your garden – variety color – specialist who has reservations about voting for Senator Obama because of the shade of his skin.

Regrettably, I know a number of such hesitant souls – all, however, were born before the 1960s. People under 30 rarely seem to give race a thought.

There appear to be two reasons for such beatific blindness: the extraordinary work of schoolteachers who strive daily to eradicate bigotry from their classrooms; and the fact that a large percentage of our athletic heroes are many shades darker than most of the rest of us.

I mean, what’s a closet racist supposed to do? Stop going to Shea or the Meadowlands because Jose Reyes and Laveranues Coles make Dick Cheney look like Casper the Ghost?

Will this lingering racism be a major factor in the presidential election? Well, luckily for us all. Karl Rove has been sidelined and John McCain is both a decent man and the product of the armed services where skin tone is generally irrelevant.

McCain has already chided Republicans in North Carolina for showing a blatantly racist ad featuring Senator Obama’s troublesome pastor.

One can only hope that time, education and economic opportunity will eventually eradicate all issues of racism, both black and white, form the political arena.

So, let’s move on to the senator’s use of the word “bitter.” It has been suggested that “angry” might have been a better choice. To my way of thinking both words hit the mark, for in the course of 30 years of touring the United States I have watched the country’s industrial heart being ripped off.

The U.S. has been changing irrevocably since the last great industrial boom fueled by the Vietnam War. Those who lost employment in the recessions of the ’70s have long since come to terms with the “bitter” truth that their jobs will not be coming back.

Those who have been made unemployable since the competitive rise of China, India, and, yes wait for it, Vietnam, are merely angry.

You see them at Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton’s rallies clinging to the unconscionable promises of politicians who know better. Is it surprising that some of these laid-off workers are turning their wrath on illegal immigrants, pro NAFTA politicians and anyone else they believe, rightly or wrongly, might be responsible for their plight?

Both Senators Obama and Clinton do a great disservice to the nation and the unemployed by suggesting that the old industrial jobs will return. At least Senator McCain has the moral principles to tell the unpalatable truth.

NAFTA may have hastened the flight of some industries overseas but the trend was inexorable; even our debt collectors, the New York Times states, are now calling from India because they cost for times less to employ.

Then again, as a wag in a Tampa saloon recently informed me, “At this rate, pal, even the funeral directors will be jetting in from Bombay to lay us out.”

As racism, only time and re-education can help renew the heartland; you can be sure that any jobs created will not be of the old line/manufacturing type. Makes you wonder if Bob Dylan shouldn’t be president. He had it right over forty years ago: “Don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters.”