What if Obama were white?

Just a random thought for the day while we're on the subject of our next president.
The race for the democratic party nominee had the novelty factor...it was there and oft mentioned even if it wasn't the top line issue: the first woman president or the first black president.
Give the democrats props for marketing savvy.
I wonder though, if Obama had NOT had the "novelty factor" would his lack of long term experience have been made more of an issue?
Would his inspirational speeches have been as inspiring?
Would he have beaten Hilary?
I'm not saying he is more or less qualified in any sense due to race...I'm just asking the question, did race make a difference?
This past week one of the Denver Broncos wide receivers, who happens to be black, tried to pull out a black and white glove when he scored a touchdown. He was stopped by two of his teammates because the game was very close and the team couldn't afford the penalty that would have ensued...for a "planned celebration". The two teammates who stopped him were white.
In the paper the following day he was quoted as saying that he was "inspired by Senators Obama's" victory and that he wanted to raise the glove as a salute to racial progress...equating it to the athletes who raised a black power fist in the Olympics years ago.
For at least one athlete then, a member of the "black community", race made a difference.
(Thankfully nothing was made of "the white guys stopping the black guy" probably because the reasoning made sense in the context of the game.)
To my way of thinking race DID make a difference. It's up to us to determine whether that becomes a positive or a negative difference because, here's the thing...Obama is Mulatto...his father is black and his mother is white.
Would he still have been considered a "black candidate" had it been the other way around?
Or, if he had a black father but looked, from a shading perspective, more like his mother would he have been considered black?
It may seem totally random that somewhere along the line he became labled as a "black kid with a white mom" rather than the other way around...it proves how random issues of color can be...but it does seem to make a difference.
Or no one would have ever mentioned it.