Clinton Strategy Doing Nasty Things to the Party

When the Clintons started race-baiting in South Carolina it drove Blacks to Obama and many whites found it distasteful and also went to Obama. He routed her setting up for a Super Tuesday where he exceeded poll numbers and caught her campaign off guard. She never really had time to recalibrate and got trounced for 11 straight contests. When the end was in sight she tweaked the campaign. The new tactics:

• Saying McCain is strong on defense and Obama isn't
• Using subtly racially-charged TV ads
• Insisting that Obama would make a good VP
• Campaign claimed Obama has gotten where he is because he is black (an affirmative action case, etc). Ferraro, to the best of my knowledge, is still a national campaign co-chair and a fundraiser.
  

The net impact of these various exceedingly nasty attacks--only the third of which I think belongs in a campaign of any sort and none of which belongs in an honorable or inspiring campaign--is to begin an intolerable splintering of our party that may elect McCain.

Race was the main decisive factor in Mississippi (welcome to 1964):

So Barack Obama seems to have won Mississippi handily... per the exits polls (thanks CBS News, as always) the racial demographics are pretty stunning when race is the order of the day: Clinton wins whites 70 to 30; Obama wins blacks 90 to 10; the electorate split roughly 50-50. (Clinton wins white men and white men by roughly 70% and 74% respectively).

He continues:

Obama voters by and large would NOT be satisfied (55%) with Clinton as their nominee, while 7 and ten Clinton voters would NOT be satisfied (72%) with Obama as theirs.

As long as HRC's campaign was merely nasty and hurting her no one in the party had any obligation to step in. Now that her campaign is substantially undermining Democratic chances in November, Democrats who have been on the sideline have no choice if they wish to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice, hold corrupt contractors accountable, or make Justice about justice. No choice. None. They must individually or collectively take HRC to the woodshed, tell her that this nastiness is unacceptable and that if she does not end it immediately and start healing the party they will support Obama en masse and end her candidacy. I can think of no other way to save the party from the divisive, hurtful, self-obsessed rhetoric the Clintons seem unavoidably attracted to. If Hillary wins gracefully, of course, I will support her. If she loses but, in so doing, undermines Obama to such a degree that he loses or loses his mandate, I doubt I will ever forgive her.