Political piece fails to give a new spin to an old issue...

In The Voting Booths, Race May Play A Bigger Role:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15race.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

In this article Adam Nagourney writes about the role that race will/is playing in the election. To me, this seemed like a pretty old issue, having been brought up again and again through the course of the past year. Yes, Obama is black and McCain is white, everyone in America is aware of this, and now the media is trying to find if this will effect the outcome of the election. When I began to read this article I was hoping it would be a new approach to this somewhat old issue, and in some ways it was. Instead of just resiting the facts and mentioning how racial prejudices could play a role in the election, he went to other influential politicians and got their quotes and their opinions.
Though the quotes were a good approach and helped support the topic, unfortunately the politicians quoted all had the same thing to say. ex. " “We honestly don’t know how big an issue it is,” Mr. Anuzis said." Having the quotes reiterate everything being said by Nagourney in the article was somewhat disappointing, because I was looking forward to a fresh new look on the race issue in the election. When finished reading the article I came to the conclusion that perhaps there is only one way to look at the issue,and that is the same way that Nagourney, and many other journalists before him, have done; it simply comes down to the fact that no one can tell if race will benefit or hurt Obama's, or McCain's, chance at the White House. Race is a factor in this election, and we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.
On a different note, Nagourney's writing was very good in this article. He used many direct and indirect quotes, which again helped a bit to spice up an older issue. His lead drew the reader in, giving them a question and leaving them to want to find out more. He gave the reader good background on the election generally, ex. "...Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain are separated by very thin margins in many polls in battleground states." and overall he was able to support his article and both sides of the argument (the argument being if Obama's race would ultimately help or hurt him gaining the presidency).
Overall, Nagourney gave a good attempt at tackling an issue that has been done and seen many times before. Though this article was not innovative or giving new information, it did give both sides of the argument and provided good support for both sides as well. Nagourney failed to give a completely new spin to the topic, and that is why I walked away from this article a tad disappointed.