IN all the clamour and ferocity of the debate about racism and Barack Obama, there is a colour issue emerging that explains some of the heat directed at the President: it's not that he's black, it's that he's blue, too blue.
Liberals have been quick to support former president Jimmy Carter's accusation that the criticism directed at Obama is racially motivated, while the conservatives have retorted with claims about socialist agendas and reverse racism - but it's clear the US political debate is not as simple as black and white.
The other key colours are blue and red - blue for Obama's Democratic Party, and red for the Republican Party, which is now regrouping after its election loss almost a year ago.
Of course, race and racism remain a potent force in the debate, but there is a long tradition of presidents - all white by definition - facing ferocious public attacks because they were controversial characters and in power at times of sharp political division.
Ever since Carter raised the race issue, there has been a growing debate as to whether it is because Obama is black that the rednecks are coming out of the woodwork. The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd suggested that when Obama was heckled during his address to the US congress on the health bill, the call of "You lie" carried the unspoken racist inference of "boy" at the end.
Unmasking hidden racism has become a preoccupation with many commentators and politicians as they rush to defend Obama. But for his part the President has downplayed the racial significance of the attacks, because there is a more complicated, and for him more important, political strategy being played out.
Obama has calmly conceded there is a racial element in the debate. As part of his popular TV campaign last week to sell his health care bill, Obama faced questions about the race issue, and when asked by David Letterman whether his opponents were motivated by racial hatred, the President joked back: "It's important to realise I was actually black before the election, so ... this is true."
It is worth noting that Obama was facing criticism for trying to dump New York's first black governor, David A.Paterson, from the gubernatorial race next year because he thought he'd lose. Obama was making a tough decision to dump a black governor for political reasons. The New York Times reported that the "overt involvement of Mr Obama's team in New York, where they have tried to ease Governor Paterson out of the race, has made clear this is a White House willing to use its clout to help clear the field for favoured Democratic candidates and to direct money and other resources in the way it thinks will most benefit the administration and help preserve the Democratic majority in Congress".
"The President's top strategists have recruited candidates - and nudged others to step aside - in races in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. They said they intended to continue this practice heading into the 2010 midterm elections," the Times reported.
The paper said this reflected the political style of the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, "who helped Democrats win the house three years ago as chairman of the congressional campaign committee".
This is the story of the other colour fight - the fight to keep the Democratic blue dominant over the Republican red, and to give Obama the best chance of implementing his program by using the Democrats' superior numbers in Congress.
On the White House website photograph of Obama addressing congress on the health bill, the shot is taken from his left and looking over the right to supportive members standing and applauding. It shuts out the truculent Republicans on his left, including the heckler from the South, who has since picked up $1.8million in contributions to his re-election fund.
The picture underlines the partisan nature of the issue, and the giant task Obama is undertaking to widen access to heathcare. The President's best hope of success is to keep his fellow Democrats united and disciplined, and he is addressing their concerns.
He made it clear he would dump bipartisanship on health if necessary, when he said during the address: "Know this - I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it."
Like Ronald Reagan, who faced his own ferocious criticism, Obama is intent on remaking his party and maintaining and building on the momentum of his election win over John McCain. And it's not just through intervention in sometimes grubby state political preselection fights.
There is a smouldering religious war under way as "progressive Christians" bemoan the fact Obama has backtracked on promises to axe spending on religious programs started by George W. Bush, which are now being directed to centre-right evangelical Christian groups and Catholics, who are seen as critical to Obama's election victory. The Obama administration has put Democratic campaign managers and supporters into key posts in the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, which oversees a network of faith and community centres.
Obama is not just funding these groups, he's allowing them to train people to proselytise. And he is appointing anti-abortionists to boards and committees, which the pro-choice activists and church-state separatists see as a sell-out.
When Kevin Rudd dipped his toe into the US domestic scene in New York last week to back Obama's objective of universal health cover, Ted Roosevelt, the great-grandson of president Theodore Roosevelt, observed that opposition to socialised medicine in the US was almost a cultural inheritance akin to a Frenchman's attachment to all things French.
All this has given the Republican red forces some hope. While some Democrats are applauding Obama's apparent backtracking on his promise to go beyond partisan politics, others fear it will hurt his standing as the President - the office above politics that is revered and should never be heckled.
As former Australian media executive Bruce Wolpe, who returned to work as a Democratic adviser after Obama's victory, told The Australian: "The address on health was partisan - it was a bit like the Westministerisation of the US system."
Just as Obama was black before he was elected president, he was also a Democrat.
