Obama Says Race Won’t Keep Him From Office

ABC News’ Lindsay Hamilton reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., says that if he loses his bid for the presidency it won’t be because of race.

"Are there people who would be troubled with an African-American president? Yes. Are there folks who might not vote for me because I’m African-American? No doubt. What I’m confident about, though, as I travel around the country is that people are decent at their core in America," Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. "If I don’t win, it’s not going to be because of my race. It’s going to be because I didn’t project a vision of leadership that gave people confidence."

Obama says he reluctantly asked for Secret Service protection recently and acknowledged that he had faced racially-motivated threats.