Statistics about race relations in America (they're not good).
Here's a selection from the article...
41% of blacks are currently satisfied with the way they are treated in society.
4% of Americans still wouldn't vote for a Black candidate for president, under any circumstances
Among those aged 65 or over, only 91% are prepared to vote for a black President.
In resumes, “white-sounding” names are “50% more likely to get called for an initial interview. (“Sarah” and “Todd” are far more likely to advance the first steps toward employment than “La-Teesha” and “Jamal”.)
17% of black Americans feel they were treated unfairly by police in the past 30 days.
68% of blacks say the U.S. justice system is biased against them.
The full picture is here - http://sheppardpost.com/the-real-state-of-race-relations-in-america/ a good reminder about the need to push back against the attacks on the tried and true, and still relevant civil rights legislation, and the politically / electorally motivated voter suppression actions the Right attempts, and how they're encouraged by Fox and other right-wing media. There's still so far to go - and It'll take progressive values, and the legislation borne of them to get there.
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put them there. It's self-evident, I think. 
Yet in reality, the reverse was actually what occurred during the last 2 elections-
The vast majority of Americans who are 65 and older are members of the Silent generation (ages 66 to 83). They came of age in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy years. Silents favored the Democrats at times during the 1990s, but in recent elections have strongly supported the Republicans. While they aligned more with the Democrats in the 1990s, they have become much more Republican in recent years. The Silent generation “replaced” the Greatest generation, who were more reliable Democratic voters when they constituted the bulk of the senior vote.
Silents increasingly call themselves conservative and they hold the most consistently conservative views about government, social issues and America’s place in the world. Unlike other generations that in recent years have become more supportive of smaller government, they have held conservative views about government for years.
Today, an overwhelming majority of Silents are either angry or frustrated with government. They are the generation that is most strongly disapproving of Barack Obama, for whom a majority did not vote. Silents also are the most politically energized generation, as they demonstrated in the 2010 midterms.
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/
The fact that a "coalition" of America voted for this current President is still heartening as this shows that the tide is changing but we still have a ways to go.
that failed for him (although she continues to profit from it). Particularly when you had GOP women like Kay Bailey Hutchinson who might have made the race more formidable.
And I don't know about this "talked a good game" bit but in his previous electoral positions (whether as U.S. Senator, or moreso as an IL State Senator) Barack Obama had a record. I have been looking for this chart for a LONG time after I first encountered it either here on DU or elsewhere, and finally found it as part of responding to this post!
(Credit to NY Times July 29, 2007 - http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/07/29/us/politics/20070730_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html)
If anything, I always felt that this showed where his focus was prior to coming into the Presidency and that is what he essentially got to early on.... the very thing that the GOP has been unrelenting in its attacks against (including yesterday's vote for a lawsuit, which once more, relates back to the ACA like the other 54-some votes against it).
That's how loons like Alan West, Alan Keyes, J.C. Watts, Tim Scott, etc., got into some sort of office. They were "our blacks" as Ann Coultergeist dubbed them.
