A cynical politician would usurp these events for personal gain; Karl Rove would turn it into the crux of his candidate’s campaign

Obama is, indeed, a cynical politician. However, he won’t use racial issues for personal gain at this time because his campaign strategy has been to paint himself as above such mean, pedestrian considerations as partisan politics, race, or gender. He’s the Everyman candidate, not the Black candidate, so he’s going to avoid highlighting racial incidents in order to avoid getting tagged as the Black candidate.

Note that he has no objection to being seen as “the Black candidate” among blacks; he just doesn’t have to say it, it’s taken for granted among blacks. That’s why they’re turning out in such large numbers.

Rove probably would do exactly the same thing.

By the way, you should note two things that the WaPo article avoids mentioning:

1) They never say how many incidents there have been; it may be a very small number, but you’d never know it from the article; and

2) This is happening entirely among DEMOCRATS.

You might hear more about racism during the general election, not because there will be more racism, but because Obama may find it useful for attracting Independents if he can paint Republicans as racist. As I said, Obama is a cynical politician.