SO what? Lighten up already! So I'm making fun of his ears. You have to admit that they are, without doubt, pretty pretty huge! And funny, too.This guy has to have more than black in him; there has to have been an elephant somewhere along the way.

At least I'm making a joke about Barack Obama. Apparently that's an accomplishment in itself.

Many comedians and talk-show hosts have, by their own admissions, been trying in vain to poke fun at Barack Obama. Poking fun at politicians and subjecting them to ridicule is, after all, what we're supposed to do in this day and age. The old habit of actually taking politicians seriously or showing them respect and gratitude for service rendered above self are long gone; passé, outmoded. Such deferential behaviour is considered downright backward, according to prevailing thought.

But this Obama, he just eludes humour; like a cockroach eludes Raid.

Consider the plight of Diane Fedele, the president of a San Bernardino County (California) Republican Party club who distributed a newsletter with a caricature of Barack Obama on fake $10 food stamps, the portrait surrounded by images of ribs, watermelon and fried chicken.

Lord Almighty! Why did she do that?

Apparently Diane Fedele thought it would a fun idea to distribute these phony food stamps to transmit the message that an Obama Presidency will inevitably result in everybody needing food stamps to survive it.

It didn't go down well; not at all.

It is said that these particular foods, all of which I actually happen to love and which I am known to consume regularly, are historically linked to "negative stereotypes of blacks". I guess I'm a little too young to fully understand why, although I do recall that Black Sambo had a particular penchant for watermelon, as do I.

In the uproar which ensued, Diane Fedele was actually forced to resign as President of the club. Her 15 minutes of fame did not turn out very well at all.

I remember something similar happening a few years ago right here in sunny tolerant Bermuda. Bill Shoaf, then general manager of Elbow Beach Hotel, was invited by officialdom to leave the island (and leave he did) following some comments he reportedly made -not as privately as he had thought- about "fried chicken on the lawn" in the wake of the then new Progressive Labour Party Government's stated intention of increasing African American tourism to Bermuda.

(Sometimes I wonder whether it's the fried chicken that sets everybody off; but I doubt it).

I was, as is my habit, listening the other day to CNN and I heard a panel of comedians agree -with the exception of D. L. Hughley, the only black comedian on the panel- that it is just about impossible to poke fun at, or make jokes about, Senator Barack Obama; because of his race.

Apparently the comic world, at least the world of white comic entertainers, fears that anything "funny" that they say will end up subjecting them to accusations of racism. Black comics don't have quite the same problem.

Can this really be true? Have we really become that uptight?

Well, yes.

What a funny old world we live in nowadays, as Margaret Thatcher once said. And I don't mean "funny ha ha", I mean "funny strange."

The solution, according to these white comedians is that America should elect Barack Obama as America's first black President thereby finally eradicating overnight and putting paid to both "white guilt" and "black hypersensitivity" at one and the same time.

Fat chance, my friends.

Just a few minutes ago, I heard a white senior law enforcement officer, again on CNN, predict a sharp rise in "hate crimes" - particularly those, he suggested, perpetrated by followers of the KKK, or Aryan Nation, and other white supremacist organisations- in the event of an Obama victory on November 4.

I found myself wishing immediately that he hadn't said that.

I know that there are a lot of crazy people in this world. In Bermuda we certainly appear to have more than our fair share for it appears (as a taxi driver once said to me) "there's more out than in!"

But America just seems to abound with crazy people, all open to suggestion at the very drop of a hat. And some of them hold high office.

The law enforcement officer's prediction of a massive increase in hate crimes, it seemed to me at the time, was akin to blowing a dog whistle; we may not have heard it, but the dogs certainly did.

It seems more and more probable that an Obama Presidency will invite resurgence, at least initially, of terrorism on the US mainland; but it will NOT, I think, be terrorism of the al Qaeda variety.

How President Obama reacts to this new round of terrorism will determine the future for all of us. One thing is certain: he must NOT do a George Bush. That would be complete and utter failure and, as before, will only serve to bolster and enhance the terrorist ranks.

According to an Associated Press news report only a few days ago this week, US law enforcement agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives broke up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Obama and at the same time to "shoot or decapitate 88 black people", the number 88 having some significance in white supremacist lore ("H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet; in white supremacist code the number 88 signifies "HH" - as in "Heil Hitler").

These guys had apparently planned to target a predominantly black high school in a murder spree that was to have begun in Tennessee and to kill 88 people, 14 of whom would die by decapitation (apparently the number 14 means something to these nutcases as well although I have no idea what).

It will take only one.

We must, we really must, continue to pray for Barack Obama and his family. And we must continue to pray for the United States of America. And whatever prayer we have left in us, we should reserve for ourselves - as we will certainly need prayer too.

Two things in particular have intrigued me about this election campaign.

First, I note the consistent and unwavering calmness of Barack Obama in the face of all manner of insult, blatantly mendacious and utterly false campaign utterances and allegations against him, and many attempts to rile or provoke him to public displays of anger.

Second, the behaviour of African Americans who, with only the rarest of exceptions, have just calmly gone about their business while at the same time registering to vote in record numbers, staying really quiet unshakeable in the face of all manner of unjustified assaults on Obama's former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on the black church, on the very liberation theology which has sustained black people, nurtured black people, given black people hope through centuries of oppression, disrespect, and disregard.

Black Americans have, on the whole, been uncharacteristically silent, yet determined, as Barack Obama, with the assistance and guidance of a most impressive biracial (though mostly white) array of advisers and planners, has ascended to within inches of making major global history.

But make no mistake about it, the black silence throughout America is ominously reflective of a combination of hope, doubt, and a sense that this may be "civilisation's" last realistic chance of making a positive turnaround from the abyss. Blacks are not the same docile Negroes that we once were. And that's all on that topic for now.

The real purpose of my column this week is to predict the outcome of the US Presidential election.

And that's a tall order, for sure.I wish it were a Bermuda election; I'm pretty good at predicting those.

But this year's US presidential election is whole other story.

Based on the polls, the prevailing mood in the US and internationally, the current global economic crisis, and his performance to date, Barack Obama would win by a landslide ¿IF he were a white man.

But I've already written about "the Bradley effect", which I believe to be a reality: whatever the polls say on the day before this election, discount six percent of Obama's lead to factor in those whites who will lie about their voting intentions in order to cover up their deep-seated abhorrence at, and fear of, the very idea of a black "leader of the free world". Centuries of ingrained conditioned bigotry and prejudice simply don't disappear overnight, however charismatic and eloquent and attractive Barack Obama may be. White supremacy, like McCain and Palin and the Republican Party in the last few weeks, will grasp at every conceivable straw to fend of the bogeyman.

Look out, of course, for the state of Ohio. If Obama wins in Ohio, he has definitely won. If McCain wins in Ohio, he has probably won; or, even if he hasn't actually won, the Supreme Court will give him victory "by any means necessary".

Look also to Florida. Remember Florida, and "hanging chads" and the first "victory" of George W. Bush, which wasn't really a "victory" at all because it was ultimately determined that Al Gore (the "loser") was actually the winner as he did garner the greater number of popular votes.

Still, I am now prepared to predict that it will be OBAMA BY AN EARLOBE.

By a nose, if you prefer; although if you think about it that too could be interpreted as racist, depending upon who says it.