You know, HRC has been running on experience, yet as demonstrated by this phrase: "What if her electoral strategists had better understood the power of caucus states" You have to wonder, when will this experience manifest itself?

I remember right before Texas, Hillary made some comment about how she and her campaign were struggling to understand the Texas primary system. All I could think was,'I can't believe she didn't have this vital important information down tight.

Yes I guess regardless of how it turns out, people will be second guessing but for the life of me I don't understand how she can run on 'experience' when the new guy is beating her by running a smarter campaign.

Like Obama's campaign repeatedly attacking Clinton and her "surrogates" for making racist statements, even though they had to stretch the definition of "racism" beyond any credible meaning in order to do so. Remember how "fairy tale" was interpreted by Obama's people to refer to Obama's campaign, not to his positions on the war? Remember "shuck and jive" being a racist statement, even though it didn't refer to Obama? Remember how Clinton "insulted" King by saying that Johnson helped him pass the Civil Rights Act? Remember how Bill Clinton's comments about Jackson (a good friend of the Clinton's) winning South Carolina were interpreted as racist, even though Jackson himself said they weren't?

That was when the tide turned and black people started to move away from Clinton in droves. The charges of racism unified them to oppose Clinton and support Obama. In one of the most cynical cases of emotional manipulation in political history, Obama's campaign decided to divide the Democratic Party into "us" and "them", with "us" being all of the "forward-thinking" people who supported him and "them" being all of the racists who didn't. In order to win this primary, Axelrod has exploited tensions between white and black people and torn open wounds that were only beginning to heal.

"Race-baiting" is an ugly phrase, but it's the only way to describe how Obama and his manager's have chosen to run this campaign. You can blame Clinton for not responding adequately, but she made a choice to take the high road and not divide the party. It's very hard to win an election when you're playing fair and your opponent isn't. And for those who celebrate Obama's "win at any cost" strategy - Remember, during the general election, he won't be fighting people who try to play fair. He will be fighting the Republicans, who have been using dirty tricks a lot longer than Axelrod. And in order to win, he will need the support of a group of people who supported the woman whose reputation he destroyed in order to win the primary.

Mr. Shaller concludes:

"But Clinton failed to stand for African-American Democrats when the chance presented itself late last fall and into early January, even if doing so meant firing key staffers or dressing down her own husband. Doing that might have denied Barack Obama the near-universal claim to their support he now enjoys, and the black-white coalition he built from it. For Hillary Clinton, the price of that failure may turn out to be nothing less than the nomination itself."

And Hillary and Bill might not have taken the low road they've taken since February - the road that has now reached subterranean status - to overturn the will of the voters:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/04/clinton-camp-considering_n_100051.html

After she finishes scorching the earth, what does she think can be put back together? If she manages to wrest the nomination from Obama, and to actually be elected, how much support would she have? The Clinton name already divides the electorate, and there's a large contingent of us who would have happily supported her a year ago but who are so appalled and disgusted by her campaign that we wouldn't support her any more than we do George W Bush, whom she's becoming more like every day.

Pastor Hagy (sp? I don't dwell on these stories) will not move into the White House if McCain is elected. Pastor Wright will not move in with the Obamas. But Bill Clinton, unelected, unrestrained, uncontrolled, and who's become a scary loose cannon, would move into the White House along with Hillary. We've had the Cheney co-administration, and the recent flap over Jimmy Carter's independent diplomacy - how soon would the Office of Bill Clinton turn the country back away from the spineless Democrats?

I voted for Bill twice, but I now have such Clinton fatigue that I've given up on hope. They've already crippled Obama even if they don't steal the nomination.

Things were so looking up in November, 2006. Back to the abyss.

And with less purchasing power to kill the pain. What a bummer after the last 7+ years.

While I like the article's basic premise that Clinton's abysmal standing among blacks wasn't inevitable, the article refuses to acknowledge the very basis of the AA renunciation of Clinton's candidacy: the AA community's nearly universal perception that HRC and her husband were willing to use a version of the Reuplican "Southern strategy" to try and win white votes by depicting Obama as a "black" candidate whose very blackness is sufficient reason to vote against him.

This race baiting, generally attributed to Bill Clinton in such incidents as equating Obama's win in SC to Jesse Jackson's win there much earlier, was an anathema to the Black community which has been historically very sensitive to being cast off by politicians wanting to win the "poor white vote" by appealing to racist sentiments in this group.

Moreover, HRC compounded this cynical insult to the AA community by denigrating MLK in her infamous praise of LBJ as the greater hero of the civil rights movement. No one likes seeing their heroes thus slighted, but reversing the social cource of the movement not only insulted us, ironically it did so in an elitist way by negating the grass roots nature of the struggle and claiming instead that Blacks should be grateful to the "great white father" for setting them free. While LBJ bears an important role in this struggle granting him priority over MLK or other Black activists who fought for their own liberation was a resounding blow.

But even after her early fiascoes, Clinton has not renounced her own Southern strategy, claiming in lowered tones and whispers that "Barack Obama is unelectable," despite his having won a majority of primaries. "Why can't he win?" one might ask. Many AA, myself included, believe that HRC is trying subtly to signal that he is unelectable solely because he is African-American. Such a claim, however subtly insinuated, must be denounced and rejected by any American who believes that America has progressed since the 1960s. The AA community, individuals such as Dr. Wright withstanding, fervently wish to believe this, and thus, have rejected Clinton and her anachronistic race-baiting tactics.

This is what Schaller's article fails to mention.