Tuesday night, CNN “analyst” Jack Cafferty wrote the following on the news organization’s Political Ticker blog:

Race is arguably the biggest issue in this election, and it’s one that nobody’s talking about.

The differences between Barack Obama and John McCain couldn’t be more well-defined. Obama wants to change Washington. McCain is a part of Washington and a part of the Bush legacy. Yet the polls remain close. Doesn’t make sense…unless it’s race.

Time magazine’s Michael Grunwald says race is the elephant in the room. He says Barack Obama needs to tread lightly as he fights back against the McCain-Palin campaign attacks.

Emphasis added. What a great job of regurgitating, without question or comment, the Obama campaign’s talking points.

First of all, “the McCain-Palin campaign attacks,” which are apparently the only negative messages being broadcast in a race in which the Democrat’s supporters are attempting to cast their candidate as “post-partisan” and his opponents as “old politics Washington insiders.” Story after story tells of supporters asking Obama at campaign stops how he is going to fight back against Republican “smears”; unfortunately for them, according to an actual research organization, the Wisconsin Advertising Project, “77% of ads from the Democratic nominee [since the Republican convention have been] negative, compared to 56% of McCain’s spots.”

Second, as the election nears, attempts to shame the American people into voting for Barack Obama by directly accusing them of racism if they do not are becoming more prevalent and more shrill, notwithstanding Cafferty’s laughable claim that race is the one issue “that nobody is talking about.”

As Allahpundit wrote at Hot Air:

Obama may have run as a post-racial candidate in the Democratic primaries, but he has shown a completely different side in the general election.  Ever since winning the nomination, Obama and his campaign surrogates (and the media) have accused Republicans of racism for their opposition to The One.  It has been a constant theme for Team Obama, even though they cannot produce a single shred of evidence in support of this smear campaign.

In their current desperation, the Left – including Cafferty and so many of his media colleagues – has long since abandoned even the most basic pretense of reporting on this campaign in terms of issues and events, instead choosing to reinforce Obama talking points and to do whatever they can – whether that be smearing Sarah Palin or accusing the American populace of being racists – to get the candidate they favor elected.