Some of Obama's supporters:

Farrakhan:

The 74-year-old Farrakhan...spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator.

"This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better," he said. "This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed."

Farrakhan compared Obama to the religion's founder, Fard Muhammad, who also had a white mother and black father. "A black man with a white mother became a savior to us," he told the crowd of mostly followers. "A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall."

If you are interested in Farrakhan's oratory and its effect on his audience, here is an example

Hamid Dabbashi

The critical question of course at this conjuncture is that if we coloured and marginal folks -- we Blacks, Asians, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims and all the most recent (legal and illegal) immigrants to this land -- will have the courage and the imagination that Barack Obama lacks. Will we cross a fence and extend a hand to a man who is after all one of us, however he may think it politically expedient to pick and chose one thing or another from the baggage he and we have brought along across the borders?

Two of my three children .. are both committed Obama fans and voted for him in the New York primaries on Super Tuesday. At this point, I am afraid the votes of my two children are all I can offer Brother Barack. Come next November, I too may leave my own darkest convictions behind and vote with the bright hope of my children.

Rashid Khalidi:

The board of a nonprofit organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe" and supports intense immigration reform, including providing drivers licenses and education to illegal aliens.

The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group. (Read the rest here)

Why are these people supporting Obama when he declaratively distanced himself from them?

The Husaria blog expresses similar scepticism:

What you are thunders so loudly that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Much has been made by the National Jewish Democratic Council about Barack Hussein Obama’s purported support for Israel. Obama’s actions, however, thunder so loudly that we cannot hear his lip service to Israel’s basic security and right to exist. After soliciting the support of the prominent racist and anti-Semite Al Sharpton, Barack Obama just accepted the endorsement of MoveOn.org. Let’s see what this official MoveOn.org bulletin has to say about Israel and the Palestinians...

(Read the rest, here)

On the other hand, there is Cass Sunstein:

A former colleague of Obama's at the University of Chicago, Cass Sunstein is a widely published and deeply respected constitutional scholar and legal theorist. He is perhaps best known for his book 'Republic.com' about the likely impacts of the modern communications and information technology on the democratic process.

Professor Sunstein's scholarship on our legal and political systems is a profound and provocative critique with much more popular appeal and import than most legal scholars manage... (read it all here)

And Martha Nussbaum..