[Leonidas]

Clinton has (potentially) driven a stake through her own nasty little political heart by finally saying explicitly what she and her surrogates have only been saying in coded language for the last several weeks.

She was probably in a strong position to negotiate for a face-saving or even power- enhancing exit from the primary race. Obama still has to be nice to her anyway, however, I think this makes it more difficult for Obama to offer her the VP spot and less likely that she can demand an offer of it or any of the other payoffs she is likely to want.

Obama doesn't want to make such an offer, and he shouldn't for all kinds of good political and moral reasons, but Clinton could easily have forced him to do so as the price of pulling out of the race and stopping the damage she has been doing. Before this, if offered the VP spot she would likely have turned it down in order to inflict one last humiliation on Obama and anti-Clinton voters.

But with this on the record she has given too many Democrats a clear way to dismiss and reject her by throwing this back in her face for eternity. The only way she can redeem herself may be to actually work hard for Obama to be elected instead of just sitting on the sidelines and hoping for his defeat as she had planned.

Wierdly, what may come of this is that she may now HAVE to ask for the VP spot and HAVE to accept it, even if she doesn't want it, because that may be her only way of tying herself to Obama and campaigning for him in a way that might repair the seriously damaged goods she has become because of this remark. And Obama may HAVE to make the offer and not be able to count on her saying no to it.


Clinton: Playing the race card? Posted: Friday, May 09, 2008 9:25 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: 2008, Clinton

The New York Post: “Clinton played the race card yesterday as she dismissed Barack Obama as a candidate who will have a hard time winning support from ‘white Americans.’ It was the most starkly racial comment Clinton has made in the campaign, and drew quick condemnation from some Democrats.

“ ‘I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,’ she told USA Today in an interview published yesterday. She referred to an Associated Press story on Indiana and North Carolina exit polls ‘that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.’ She added, ‘There's a pattern emerging here.’”

Here’s what some said in response: “Muriel Offerman, a North Carolina superdelegate who has not disclosed her choice, said, ‘That should not have been said. I think it drives a wedge, a racial wedge, and that's not what the Democratic Party's about.’ Asked about Clinton's comments, Massachusetts superdelegate Debra Kozikowsi said, ‘That's distressing. I'm not even sure how to respond to that.’”

The New York Daily News: “Hillary Clinton misplays race card while Barack Obama is treated like rock star.” “[S]ome of her supporters -- including Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan) -- slammed the comments. ‘I can't believe Sen. Clinton would say anything that dumb,’ Rangel told The News as he headed to the House floor, where earlier he had embraced Obama. The bitter words came as both candidates looked ahead to West Virginia's primary Tuesday and pressed their talking points -- Clinton insisting she was in the race to win, while Obama argued he could have the nomination wrapped up when Oregon and Kentucky vote on May 20.”

Peggy Noonan also believes Clinton played the race card in her USA Today interview. "If John McCain said, ‘I got the white vote, baby!’ his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party. To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical ‘the black guy can't win but the white girl can’ is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.”

“‘She has unleashed the gates of hell,’ a longtime party leader told me. ‘She's saying, “He's not one of us.”’

John Edwards said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that he disagrees with Clinton’s “white Americans” comment and that she's got to ask herself, "Where are the lines?" He added, “I think it’s fine for Hillary to keep making the case for her. But when that shifts to everything that is wrong with him, then we’re doing damage instead of being helpful.”

And did Edwards tip his hand on who he’s backing? He called Obama the "likely nominee.” And we’ll chalk this one up to his Southern accent, but he said he "voted for 'em on Tuesday.” (Sounded an awful lot like "him.")

Also… “I think Barack Obama’s doing pretty well without my help.” Edwards also said, “He is clearly the likely nominee at this point.”

Edwards said he may choose to publicly declare for one of the candidates, but he’s keeping it to himself “just for now.” He added, though, that he doesn’t think his endorsement matters except to “people like you all” [the media]. He wouldn’t answer if he and his wife, Elizabeth, voted for different people.

Here’s the New York Post’s headline to Charles Hurt’s column: “Desperate Hillbillies threaten to break up party.” “Well, now these racial politics have spilled out into the public and are splintering longtime, devoted Democrats into separate camps. It's become the ‘working-class whites’ versus the ‘eggheads and African-Americans.’

More: “With no one left to cry to, Sen. Clinton has gone nuclear and she's getting kookier by the minute. Yesterday she was toast. Today, she's looking more like scrambled eggs.”

Politico's Smith on Clinton's blunt talk about her white support: "Now, the press has talked about the race in these terms constantly, so I won't feign shock. But it's a bit strange to hear it so bluntly from the candidate's mouth, and probably not a great way to endear herself to African-American voters. And it's also noteworthy that the blunt talk on appealing to whites surfaces the day after the last round of primaries in which there's a substantial number of black voters."


B]http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/05/09/999566.aspx[/b]