The Clinton campaign adroitly played the race card immediately after Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat in the Iowa caucuses. Barack Obama’s historic run for the presidency has proven to be as baffling as it is frightening to the Clintons.  Injecting race was an effort by the Clintons to slow the Obama train down and it worked.  Hillary won New Hampshire with an outpouring of white women voters who did not show that much enthusiasm for her during the Iowa caucuses before race became an issue.  The race card strategy went on to pay even more dividends in the Nevada caucuses where Senator Clinton won.  However, assuming Sen. Clinton goes on to win the Democratic nomination, unifying the party maybe a more daunting task for her than winning the nomination.  The Clintons may eventually regret dealing the race card into the game.

The Obama phenomenon has never been seen in American politics. The Clintons, long time civil rights advocates, have certainly been caught off guard by Obama’s challenge to Hillary’s ascent to the White House.  But the ever resourceful Clintons came up with the ultimate weapon to slow down Obama. The Clinton campaign, through coded messages well known to most Americans, reminded everyone that Barack Obama is Black and Hillary Clinton is a white woman.  Than the Clinton campaign quickly blamed the Obama campaign for injecting race! The race card tactic was masterfully done and a political necessity for a campaign that was clearly in trouble immediately after Iowa. But Clinton detractors feel the race card play, along with the phony blame game that followed, was more like Karl Rove and the Republicans and nothing our beloved Democrats should be doing to one another.

How quickly we have forgotten that Hillary Clinton’s primary strength leading up to this presidential campaign was the Clintons hard hitting political machine which was tailor made to meet the Republicans head on in a bare knuckles fight for the White House. The Clintons would not be Al Gore or John Kerry.  There is no fear of Karl Rove in the House of Clinton.  So, why are Democrats surprised to see some of that Clinton “take no prisoner’s politics” on display in the Democratic nominating process?  Never mind that Sen. Obama has gone out of his way to not make race an issue in his campaign.

Meanwhile, the Nevada caucuses’ exit polls are showing that Hillary Clinton won overwhelmingly with women, especially white women.  She also carried white men thus giving her a sweep of white caucus-goers in Nevada.  Obama overwhelming carried Black voters.  But the more troubling development in the long term for the Democratic Party is that Clinton carried the Latino vote by a huge margin.  This development threatens to create even more racial animosity between African-Americans and Hispanics, two key constituents in the Democratic Party.  If this trend continues, look for African-American voters to become even more outspoken about illegal immigration-an issue that could create an opening for Republicans in November.

Hillary Clinton may very well prove to be the Democratic Party’s best hope of reclaiming the White House. The Clinton political machine may prove to be more effective then the Obama phenomenon.  The Clintons are political pragmatists and winners. But they are not experienced at playing the race card against another liberal Black candidate who has never used race to aid his meteoric rise.  The Clintons have no idea just how much damage their desperate and necessary political move will cost the Democrats in November. On February 5^th 2008, 22 states will vote in the Democratic Primaries.  The winner could wrap up the Democratic nomination. But before that happens, there is South Carolina.

The upcoming South Carolina primaries will be telling for Democrats and the Clintons.  Black voters make up almost 50% of the Democratic vote in South Carolina.  Recent news stories coming out of South Carolina suggests that the Black electorate is angry with the Clintons even though several leading Black Democrats in the state have pledged their support for Hillary. The Clinton’s disingenuous criticism of Sen. Obama for his giving credit to some of former President Ronald Reagan’s accomplishments was a mistake. The Clintons themselves have given past praise to the Reagan presidency. Their criticism of Obama in this instance has shown the Clintons to be hypocritical; something African-American voters never noticed before this election.  Once again those kinds of tactics may play well against a white Republican candidate but those same tactics are considered divisive and unfair by Black Democrats.

Thus far, the Clinton machine has injected race, contested the Nevada caucus process, unfairly labeled Obama a Ronald Reagan fan, and called the Obama phenomenon a “fairy tale.” While this has been going on, the economy is in the tank, Obama may have won more delegates in Nevada then Hillary, and the Republicans, while still searching for their own champion, are hoping that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President.  At least that is how I see it from South of the Trinity.

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