...HE probably thought that the left would be sophisticated enough to realize that he is an African American man with an Arab name trying to get a predominantly White European ancestried country to elect him to the highest office in the land, THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD (or what's left of it), and that no matter how good it looks right now, he WILL BE THE UNDERDOG until the moment he's sitting in the oval office...
he probably thought we would realize that his number one priority is making sure mainstream(i.e., white) America feels safe and reassurred that he's not the scary, crazy, leftist, America hating Negro the Republicans will try their damnedest to make him seem... he probably thought or HOPED that we would NOT hold against him and REACT so knee-jerkingly, hystrionically, beyond all proportion negatively to his ONE NON-DECISIVE vote that would in NO WAY change the outcome of this piece of legislation...perhaps he thought the base would hold and provide the support that the first AA nominee would HAVE to have while he did what he NEEDED to do to REASSURE all those other folks who do not make up the 'Democratic wing of the Democratic party' that he is not going to be too...?...whatever it is they need to be reassured about when Black people are running ANYTHING, let alone a country?
...the AA community UNDERSTANDS this but some of our liberal White friends don't fully appreciate this phenomenon...Obama being raised BY White people, understands what he's up against in an intimate way and is anticipating what will be going thru mainstream America's heads when they go into the voting booth....maybe he HOPED that the folks who got him to the nomination would understand "we've won, NOW we HAVE to win" and that is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING...the PARTY, the COUNTRY, and most of the WORLD is depending on him, it's NOT ALL ABOUT US...we have 117 days between now and Nov. 4, time is NOT on our side...at this point, ANY time not spent helping Barack Obama is helping John McCain...
Anyway, that's what I think he was thinking.