Shelby Steele says Barack Obama won the presidential election by successfully basing his candidacy on race. We know very little about the content of Barack Obama's character, although we will come to know it with every decision he makes as president. Obama represented an opportunity for white voters to dispel the stigma that this is a racist country. Black voters, by contrast, voted for Obama to dispel the idea that they are inferior. Either way, the November elections revealed how this country is obsessed by race.