The decisive issue next week is Barack Obama. Can a Kenyan American become president? Despite the polls, I don’t think so. A Democrat is something like a Cubs fan. In the face of good news, he expects to lose. The experts think the Cubs are the best team in baseball, so of course they will lose because they are the Cubs. The Democrat is so accustomed to having defeat snatched away from the jaws of victory that he simply assumes it will happen again. And it turns out that he’s right. Coyote is still out there, and he is still hungry.

The present campaign started when senator-to-be Obama addressed the Democratic convention in Boston four years ago. He was dazzling, a new and charismatic political face. He called for reconciliation in the American political game — “not red states, not blue states but the United States.” To most Americans, tired of the rancid ideological politics that pervaded the country, he proposed a radically different political style. He was brilliant, attractive, persuasive, hopeful. He would certainly run for president.

His rivals perceived that they had to destroy him. Early on, the way was prepared for their attacks by the haters on the Internet. He was a Muslim, he was anti-Semitic, no one knew who he was or where he came from. He didn’t look like a proper American. For many people these arguments were decisive.

The next assault came from his fellow Democrats. He was too quick, too disciplined, too well-organized to disappear as he should have. Therefore the litany of contempt began. He lacked experience. He was not ready to be commander in chief. No one knew how he would act in time of crisis. He needed more seasoning. Others had worked for similar causes in the heat of the day. They were entitled. All he had ever done was give one good talk.

Looking back at the last year, it is astonishing that he survived to the Democratic convention. But he surprised everyone. He established a national organization that mirrored the Chicago precinct system, he raised a large treasury by appealing on the Internet. He answered questions and objections with grace. So his madcap clergyman was summoned, and then a friend who had been a member of the Weathermen terrorist group long ago.

His opposition to the war and more recently his plans for the economic crisis were popular and effective. His response to these challenges had to be erased from the agenda.

If his opponent was going to do him in, he would have to attack Sen. Obama’s character, a favorite strategy of Republicans for the last 20 years. He was a celebrity, as shallow as the pop tarts. His eloquence was phony. He was an extreme liberal, he was a socialist, he was a terrorist. He was a threat to the American way of life, he was not like the rest of us. He was not a patriotic American. In a time of crisis the country needed a proven, patriotic American.

In other words, he faced the same race card that President Nixon played in 1972, only the card had another name now — “experienced, patriotic, American.”

Whether the card will trump his talents and charm remains to be seen. It probably depends on the votes of younger Americans as the phenomenon of cohort replacement changes the tone and agenda of the nation.

Is the race card, appropriately renamed, as powerful as it used to be? Whatever the polls may say, I think it still has enough power to tip the election in the Republican direction. And then Sarah Palin will be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.