President Obama surrounded by notoriously-hard-to-impress white people. Photo via Bloomberg.

Forget about the Secret Service, dogs, China, and Mitt Romney’s VP pick: It’s clear enough that President Obama’s chances for reelection in the fall will rest largely on how well the much-vaunted recovery appears to be going to average Americans — how well the job figures and unemployment rates look in the eyes of on-the-fencers.

But what about how the President looks? We mean the way his, uh, skin looks. Sound irrelevant? Think again, you naive post-racial American!

The New York Times reports today that race appears to be a not insignificant factor in the minds of some voters in predominantly white and blue-collar parts of Ohio — areas that vote solidly Democratic and even favored the President in 2008.

In 50 interviews in this county over three days last week, 5 people raised race directly as a reason they would not vote for Mr. Obama. In those conversations, voters were not asked specifically about race, but about their views on the candidates generally. Those who raised the issue did so of their own accord.

Of course, the vast majority of Ohio’s Democratic voters could care less whether the President is African-American or not; the Times says they’re more concerned about the potential of his energy policies — like his opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline — to hurt crucial industries that the state’s workers rely on for employment. Just a few weeks ago, Republican-in-chief John Boehner appealed to Ohioans with open arms about just this very issue.

Still, the loss of even a relatively small number of Democratic votes over the shade of the President’s skin could have serious implications for Ohio’s hue in November. Alas, whether the hotly-contested Buckeye State colors itself blue or red could potentially decide the race.

Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer writes in the Washington Post that it only makes sense for Americans to feel divided this year, given that

[the] entire Obama campaign is a slice-and-dice operation, pandering to one group after another, particularly those that elected him in 2008 — blacks, Hispanics, women, young people — and for whom the thrill is now gone.

According to Krauthammer, photo ID laws, the “Buffet rule,” “the war on women,” and the President’s appeal to college students in debt are all bottom-of-the-barrel attempts to pit voters against each other, to divide and conquer with “bogus court challenges, dead-end Senate bills and forest of straw men.”

It remains to be seen whether the President will succeed in unifying as many different Americans to the extent that he did, or appeared to do, in 2008. Whether Mitt Romney can, however, is an even greater unknown. It might even be the case that, for a variety of reasons, Romney could alienate even those few prejudicial voters in Ohio and turn them back to Barack. Just imagine the signs: “Racists for Obama Say: I Wouldn’t Let Him Near My Daughter, but He’s Better than Mitt!”