My point was that Democrats never raise this birth issue (Republicans target blacks and Hispanics for this honour). And enough Republican voters still believe Obama was not born American (they also hate the fact that his white mother married a black man - the ultimate fear for southerners who are racist).

As for McCain, the stress was on the child being black (the Republican electorate wouldn't have minded a white child being adopted; and most of them don't know where Bangladesh is. Hatred for blacks fetches a lot more votes). Here is a war hero who was a POW for years, and did a noble thing by adopting a Bangladeshi child. And it got turned into an ugly rumour.

My former Texan boss told me that the Democrats won the South for a hundred years after the Civil War by promising that however bad things were, at least they didn't have to share schools, restaurants, etc with the blacks. Their Republican opponents would force desegregation, they said.