I dont think either were the major issues in this election. While Obama clearly ran a better campaign I think a lot of Americans were scared of him, because his lack of experience and other things as well. This is evident because given the current economic state of the country you would expect the non incumbent party to have a land slide in the popular vote and that just was not the case.

msnbc was declaring that voter's were concerned with age more than race
msnbc's coverage of this campaign was ridiculous they chose a candidate early in the primary and from that point on every thing that came from that channel was completely biased. While i do prefer to watch fox news i also found cnn's coverage to be fair to both candidates and more accurately displayed the truth.