Most of us will never get the chance to write our own obituaries but this remains one of the few perks of candidates whose political careers are officially dead. As pundits conduct the equivalent of an autopsy after a loss (i.e. "We all know that campaign is dead, now let's decide what killed it") the candidate goes around trying to "set the record straight" which is usually code for: blame everybody else for his/her defeat. To his credit, Congressman Artur Davis has not done this, going to great lengths during our recent interview to take responsibility for his dramatic loss in last week's Alabama gubernatorial primary. But amidst much of the media postmortem of Davis' race, one major question has been left unanswered: Has President Obama's tumultuous first 500 days in office made it tougher for other black candidates to succeed?