The differences between Barack Obama and John McCain couldn't be more well-defined. Obama wants to change Washington. McCain is a part of Washington and a part of the Bush legacy. Yet the polls remain close. Doesn't make sense…unless it's race.

Time magazine's Michael Grunwald says race is the elephant in the room. He says Barack Obama needs to tread lightly as he fights back against the McCain-Palin campaign attacks.

He writes, "Over the past 18 months, Obama has been attacked as a naive novice, an empty suit, a tax-and-spend liberal, an arugula-grazing élitist and a corrupt ward heeler, but the only attacks that clearly stung him involved the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - attacks that portrayed him as an angry black man under the influence of an even angrier black man."

The angry black man, he goes on to say, doesn't have broad appeal in White America. And even though the makeup of our population is changing, whites are still the majority in this country. How ironic that the giant step forward of nominating an African American for president may ultimately keep us mired in the past.

Here is the question: Will Barack Obama's race cost him the White House?