In 2008, I interviewed Joe Sinitski, a technician for a heating and air-conditioning company, just before he cast a vote he never expected to make -- for Mr. Obama, even though he said he had been "brought up" in such a way as to make him disinclined to vote for a black candidate. He has since been laid off from his job but said he would vote for the Democrat. "The way it looks to me is the Republicans have gone to the other extreme," he said. "It's like they're saying, `O.K., if you can vote in a black guy, we'll counter that by putting up nut jobs for office.' "