Sen. Clinton has displayed lousy judgment throughout this campaign and the pattern continues in this asinine interview. To speak in an ignorant and divisive way about race on the day after she lost overwhelmingly in North Carolina, brings to mind Bill Clinton's boneheaded dismissal of Obama's win in South Carolina as Jesse Jackson redux.

If this is the kind of desperate, illogical, and borderline racist argument she is making to the super delegates they should feel abused and insulted. Her days on the campaign trail are indeed numbered.

I find it crazy that Clinton seems to think she's got the broader coalition. They both have a couple of demographic groups in their favour. Clinton's got blue-collar whites, middle-aged women, and Hispanics. Obama's got Blacks of all classes, white-collar whites, and young people in general. Sad as it is to break down America along such strict - and racially charged - lines, there you have it.

The fact is a nominee will need votes from all these groups in the general election to win. So either would have a lot of peace-making to do. Trying to suggest that somehow Clinton's coalition is broader is patently untrue, and given that Obama's getting more votes overall (and larger inroads into Clinton's demographic groups than the other way around) it looks a lot like an outright, desperate lie.

And her wording here makes it sound like she thinks that any group - notably blacks and anyone with a university education - that is favouring Obama is clearly not as important to the Democratic party as blue-collar white people. That's just pathetic.

She probably does have a wider base. But why does she assume that her base and Obama's base won't come together this fall? Is she really asserting here that thw two bases are mutually exclusive or somehow like oil and water? It was only two days ago that she said she would support the D nominee. Was that just because Obama said it first?

The Democratic primaries prove Clinton can appeal to a broader base. I mean she is winning isnt she?

"Even George W. Bush captured a larger share of the African-American vote than she has in some recent primaries. In 2004, Bush got 11 percent of the African-American vote. In the Indiana Democratic primary on Tuesday, Clinton got the same percentage Bush did in '04 -- in North Carolina, though, she took just 7 percent."

This is not a valid comparison, since Bush wasn't running against an African-American. In a race against McCain, Hillary would undoubtedly get the majority of the African-American vote. Perhaps not at the same level as Obama, but certainly a lot higher than what Bush got or what McCain is likely to get.

... but the real question is: "What does McCain have to offer them compared with Obama?"

Many blue collar whites are union voters. Both Clinton and Obama have signed on to support changes to make starting new unions easier. A health care plan pushed by a Democrat- Obama or Clinton- will offer the average worker more than any Republican solution, and will help the manufacturing economy by shifting some of the burden of maintaining health insurance for workers and pensioners onto the government. Perhaps most importantly for blue collar Americans- who have disproportionately borne the burden of the war in Iraq- electing John McCain will prolong the war in Iraq, increasing the demands on servicemen and their families. McCain, despite his early opposition, has now come around to the party position that permanent tax cuts for the wealthy are the best economic stimulus package; either Obama or Clinton would offer more to lower- and middle- class families, and ending the war would make it possible to relieve their tax burden without continuing the disastrous ballooning of our deficit.

So while the "demographic issues" indicate a need for Obama to reach out to make sure that working-class Democrats show up at the polls in number, there's no reason to believe that there will be a mass defection to McCain in the general election by blue-collar Dems. On the other hand, there's significant evidence that among African Americans, Obama can draw voters who might have voted with Republicans on social issues in the past or who haven't voted at all.

In the end, the demographic that matters most is that most Democratic voters prefer Barack Obama. Clinton supporters will be disappointed when she doesn't receive the nomination, but despite the hard rhetoric by a determined few in both camps, I seriously doubt that large numbers of Democratic voters will cross the line to vote for 100 Years of War McCain, no matter who is the Democratic nominee. The general election will refocus the discussion on the differences between the parties, instead of on the frankly minor policy differences between Clinton and Obama and their entirely subjective personal qualities.

Am I the only person that thinks it a little bit funny that Clinton's best argument is "Hey, uneducated white hillbillies and old women love me, I must be the best candidate!"

Sure there's a lot of them, but is that really somthing to be proud of?

Let's face it.

"Vote WHITE" is Hillary's new bumper sticker for whatever time is left that she remains in the campaign.

She's graduated to the ultimate, most cynical pander of all.

There is no further doubt about her...she is using race to fearmonger. Her last ditch effort is to strike fear in the hearts of the moronic racist Bubba wing of the Democratic party.

It's cynical, it's divisive, it's the opposite of hope. And I hope that, just like her ridiculous gas tax pandering, and her "boilermaker drinkin'" pandering, and "dodging sniper fire" exaggerating -- that it doesn't work at all.

The sooner she can realize that time is up, the sooner she can move out of campaign attack dog mode -- and into an appropriate kingmaker position, and move forward to take a rightful place as one of the party's key leadership -- which even after all of this, I think she deserves.

Well, with a comment like "hardworking Americans, white Americans" she should say goodbye to any votes coming from people of color from now on.