not a good look

Hillary Clinton's comments in an interview with USA Today, about her support amongst white voters, are still reverberating. They're unlikely to have done her any favours with superdelegates, or anyone else in the party. By mentioning the race of voters she broke something of a taboo, and has once again been accused of playing the race card in a desperate last-ditch attempt to scare supers away from Obama.

Personally I don't believe for a moment that Clinton is a racist or even that she's trying to stoke up racial divisions to her advantage. She's just an inveterate tactician. The real problem with these comments is not specifically race-related: it's that they're woefully unpresidential. Presidential candidates shouldn't be doing phone calls with journalists discussing the demographic make-up of their voters, citing articles they've read in the press. They should leave that to the strategists and the spin doctors.

This interview may remind some in the party of what they didn't like about the Clinton administration: the suspicion that it was too poll-driven, too fascinated by the minutiae of political strategy to set a clear course for the country.

Comments

[rellis]

You've nailed it.