Was this an example of pure racial hatred?

The US press in those days duly reported but tended to downplay events that told the opposite story. The footnote, for instance, that the white supremacist website stormfront.org temporarily went dead on 5 November, the day after the election, because it was so inundated with requests for membership. And the tale about the Maine convenience store that started an "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool" inviting customers to bet on the date Obama would be shot, and saying: "Let's hope we have a winner".