One reason Republicans heart Obama: He steers away from racial politics.

Peter Wehner writes, “Barack Obama is running a color-blind campaign.” The Washington Post reports, “Race and gender have only occasionally dominated the battle between Obama and Clinton. … Clinton has sought more than Obama to highlight the unique nature of her candidacy.” Obama supporters chanted “Race doesn’t matter” at his South Carolina victory party, echoing Obama when he said, “I did not travel around this state and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina.”

But can race not matter in a nation as deeply wounded as ours? Today the New York Times said that despite Obama’s desire to transcend racial tensions, “from Day 1 his bid for the presidency has been pulled into the thick of them.” Some African-Americans view his campaign with suspicion. Analysts point to his success with black voters and say that race still divides us. Some supporters – looking at the discrepancies between polls and Obama’s actual votes – suspect a silent racial bias among white voters.

Shelby Steele, Hoover fellow and author of A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win, explains the tension to PBS’ Bill Moyers. Steele says whites see Obama’s color-blind campaign and possible presidency as a sign of America’s redemption. (See this post from Rolling Stones’ Tim Dickinson.) Obama relieves white anxiety, but he also puts African-Americans on guard, Steele said: “Barack Obama is saying, … ‘I’m going to simply ask you to treat me as though I’m not black.’ … Well, it’s a nice bargain. But boy, does it make blacks nervous. Our blackness is our power.”

Obama admits he gets more African-American votes but still claims, “That doesn’t mean that the race is dividing along racial lines. You know, in places like Washington State we won across the board, from men, from women, from African-Americans, from whites and from Asians.”

Obama is gaining support among white voters in some states. Obama wins the white male vote and captures the white youth vote, too. Some African-Americans support Obama because they object to racial politics. One supporter told Newsday.com, “It’s not about black. It’s not about white. It’s not about gender. It’s about what’s right.”

Obama voter Kathleen Geier is pessimistic about Obama’s ability to transcend race: “Even if he is elected, in no way will that show that somehow we have ‘gotten beyond’ race.” Jeff Jacoby counters, “Is the colorblind idea nothing but a dream? It need not be.”