The Issue of Race in This Year's Presidential Elections

A recently conducted CBS News poll indicates that 68 percent of Americans believe that our country is ready to elect an African-American President.

That statistic indicates that the percentage of Americans that believe the United States is ready for an African-American President has nearly doubled over the past eight years.

In 2000, only 38 percent of the individuals that were polled believed our country was ready for an African-American President.

The percentage of Americans who believe that our country is ready has increased an astounding 14 percentage points since January of this year, according to the CBS News poll. With Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama receiving the required number of delegates to win the party's nomination on Tuesday, the issue of race may potentially be a factor in the upcoming election.

The poll indicates that Democrats, at 67 percent, are slightly more likely to say that most people they know would in fact vote for an African-American presidential candidate than Republicans, who stood at 61 percent.