In 1961, Robert Kennedy suggested that the nation was moving so fast in race relations that a black could be President in "30 or 40 years." The past four decades have been truly revolutionary in American politics, with a significant increase in the number of minority elected officials, greater voter participation by nonwhites and symbolic runs for President by Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson and Alan Keyes. Obama owes those trailblazers a debt, but his ascendance was the product of something very different from those previous White House bids: not only was race not Obama's signature dimension by any measure, but — with the exception of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy — it was barely an issue at all.
Running with race as an afterthought, Obama didn't just win. He won big. His support among blacks was unprecedented, but he also won by raising money from and building political alliances with the kind of broad coalition that the Kennedys would appreciate: Ivy League-educated captains of industry, labor leaders, military officials, white ethnics, Hispanics, young voters and senior citizens.
Kennedy's life was cut short before he could see his prediction come true, but the barrier has been broken, and never again will the country wonder when or if. Instead the question will be, Who's next?