This video might make your stomach turn, but it seems like more and more of these incidents have been popping up lately. Certain segments of society are becoming more vocal about their unease with Obama's foreigness and name. Maybe we're just paying more attention now. But it certainly seems they're responding in part to McCain's increasingly hostile character attacks.

But let's be honest. It's not just his name. Latching onto his nonexistent "Muslim" or "Arab" connections in many ways provide cover for good old fashioned racism. It's not racism, they can argue, it's just hate-speech against Muslims and foreigners. Which is apparently ok.

The obsession with his name that we see in the video should bother me more. I could certainly give Obama a run for his money in foreign-sounding names. But it doesn't. I don't view these people as representative of modern-day America. Yes, there are still pockets of blatant racism and bigotry, and yes we still have same latent issues to deal with. I'm not suggesting that these aren't relevant or that they should be ignored. But take a look at the polls. Obama currently has a nearly 90% chance to win this thing, and he has the potential to win by a bigger margin than any president since Reagan.

If a few years ago you had suggested that a black man named Barack Hussein Obama would have this kind of success against the war-hero maverick John McCain, most people would have laughed you out of the room. We've almost gotten used to the novelty of it by now, but think about it.

Barack Hussein Obama is on the verge of being the next President of the United States.

That itself says a lot about how far we've come collectively. And that's why there's no point fretting about what a few bigoted stragglers blurt out at a campaign rally. If they want to be left behind, then so be it. The rest of us are moving forward. Contrast the video above with this one featuring Donna Brazile. The latter is the video we should be paying attention to.

It's going to get worse before it gets completely better. I never thought Obama could finish this campaign without surviving one last all-out assault on the issue of race. It's his last hurdle to making history. It's our last hurdle to making history. Every step he takes closer to the White House is a step forward for us, away from a divisive, and sometimes downright ugly and shameful, past. He has cleared every other one that's been put in front of him, and there's no reason to think he—and we—won't do the same this time.