Other politicians, Republicans in particular, are handicapped against Obama by his skin color. The mainstream media in the US is convinced that the Republican party is practically the Ku Klux Klan in suits, and would interpret even routine, normal political attacks against Obama as "racist."

Back when the "birther" thing was big in the news, I theorized that Hillary Clinton, even if she'd uncovered real evidence that Obama was not an eligible candidate for the Presidency due to not being a natural-born US citizen, might have refrained from using that evidence to destroy his candidacy for fear of destroying her own political future which is, for worse or worse, tied to the Democratic party. If she had, it would have set off an internal civil war among the Democrats, and Hillary would forever be "the racist pig who sank the black candidate."