Letters to the Editor
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Phony hand-wringing is patronizing
Yawn. Hillary is just out on the campaign trail, pandering per usual. I'm not sure how this is any different than whiskey shots in PA, riding around in a pick-up truck in IN, dropping her G's in the south, pushing a bogus gas tax scheme in NC and IN, carrying on about shooting guns in Scranton, sitting down with Richard Mellon Sciafe in Pittsburgh, teasing Rush Limbaugh in NC. She goes to a state, sizes up her odds, looks at her internal polling, appeals to the voters she thinks she can win, and then moves on the next state and applies the same formula. Simple. (And it doesn't seem to matter to her supporters that these state-to-state changes require adopting completely different personae - making her look fragmented and unstable.) The difference now is that she's running out of groups to pander to, so she's been forced to become more direct and explicit. Thus invoking the word "white" a couple of times (it wasn't just once) in a state that is - surprise! - 97% white. And it will work for her because the only real value in mentioning race at all in WV is to underscore the race of her non-white opponent. The polls there already have her through the roof. This will only help.
What's left out of the discussion is not that Obama has a problem with whites (exit polling shows he's actually made gains there since Ohio) - he doesn't - it's that he has an issue with blue-collar voters. That's the issue, so it was certainly curious that Clinton had to qualify that by invoking race while sitting in WV. Again, you be the judge.