NEVER MIND the polls. You knew John McCain had pulled even with Barack Obama in mid-September with the appearance of a flurry of published articles explaining Mr. Obama’s oncoming defeat as the function of racism in battleground states. Various poll numbers, along with the “Bradley factor” justified the claim.

This came from the part of the left I hate –– the “blame-America-firsters.” Evil always originates in their own country. American history is a hop, skip and a jump from witchcraft in Salem, in 1692, to Pinkerton thugs in Pittsburgh during the Homestead strike, in 1892, to the internment of Japanese American citizens, in 1942, to the Army-McCarthy hearings, in 1954. These things did happen. But flukes such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Emancipation and the civil-rights movement aren’t worth mentioning.

Three months of vapid campaigning thus couldn’t possibly be what put Mr. Obama at risk. If he were to lose, it could only be explained as caused by the racism that the blame-America-firsters are so deeply invested in clinging to. Unlike Mr. Obama himself, they panicked. Being fond of cynicism and afeared by belief, they threw in the towel in the 10th round of the 15-round fight.

The “Bradley effect” dates to 1982, when the late Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley ran for governor of California. Leading in the polls, he lost to George Deukmejian. The assumption was that white voters had not been honest with pollsters about their unwillingness vote for a black candidate. There was probably some truth to it, though Mr. Bradley, who was an effective politician, was not a messianic campaigner. Recent elections, pollsters say, have shown little or no “Bradley effect.”

I admire principled figures of the left such as Jonathan Kozol, Ralph Nader and Senators Russ Feingold and Tom Harkin. The ones I hate (I really do) are always safe in saying that there are racists out there. The question history will have to answer about Mr. Obama, win or lose, is: Did his so-called race help him more than it hurt him, or vice versa? (Being half-white, why is he “black”? That is a form of racism, implying tainted blood, that we still accept.) My guess is that his “race” will have helped him more than hurt him, because there is a reservoir of good will in the white electorate, and this candidate has had the perfect temperament to make it rise.

Elections are dynamic, not static. The “towel-in-the-ring” was immediately obscured by a spectacle blame-America-firsters could really enjoy –– an economic pandemic of mythic proportions originating in capitalism’s Roman Coliseum, its Stone of Tizoc, its Nuremburg rallying point: Wall Street!

Actually, it may have originated in a faux Williamsburg mansion on Wisconsin Avenue, in Washington –– the headquarters of Fannie Mae. But Wall Street had joined Fannie Mae in paying no heed to the flies attracted to the subprime-mortgage honeycomb. This and Mr. McCain himself seem for the moment to have sunk Mr. McCain’s campaign and gotten Mr. Obama out of his slight funk. If Mr. Obama can’t come up with an Elliot Spitzerian act of low grandeur in the next 27 days, he had better get used to the idea that, as Eleanor Roosevelt said to Harry Truman on April 12, 1945, “You’re the one in trouble now, Harry.”

One wonders if there was anything John McCain could have done to change this. Well he did, for the worse. His first blunder was to keep Sarah Palin bound and gagged –– confessing that he believes her critics were right. They were not right. Unbound, she throve, and had what Democrats said about her been said about a pro-choice Democratic woman, those who said it would have been in high dudgeon.

It is true Mrs. Palin was sincerely criticized for her political positions and inexperience. But I believe the vitriol about her exposed lingering attitudes about women that those who consider themselves enlightened unconsciously retain. Being well acquainted with Slavic women, who typically have great power in the family, I see American feminists as trading trivialities –– “fisherperson” instead of fisherman, for example –– for substance.

Mr. McCain’s second blunder was to cancel the first debate, then not cancel it; to march on Washington as if he were already president, then fail to deliver the Sept. 29 vote he had neither the power nor responsibility to deliver. It was a performance Jimmy Carter could admire.

A year ago we were told we could watch if we liked, but the 2008 election would be between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. But there were surprises in store –– and still could be. One would be if Sarah Palin had demolished Joe Biden in their debate. But the rapid-fire one-upmanship of that event reminded me of debates at the all-boys prep school I attended. I thought Mrs. Palin held her own, but that it was Mr. Biden who was in his element and hit the home run.

After the first presidential debate I teasingly told a black colleague that if having a black president was going to be upsetting to her she’d better get used to the idea. It all could shift again, but I must check to see if she’s getting to be okay with it.

David A. Mittell Jr. is a member of The Journal’s editorial board ( damittell@gmail.com).