Both of these campaigns are obviously suffering from stress and lack of sleep; the continual mis-steps are pretty lame.

You know a lot of your posts are frankly not worth dairying as a front page piece.

Bob Johnson would say whatever he wants  , these are very established people and believe me they did not get to the position they are in by being door mats.

Bob Johnson is not a surrogate , he is not Mark Penn.

I don't recall you putting up a diary about Jesse Jackson Jr , ( you might have , but I won't be surprised if you didn't) and his Katrina nonsense , now that is a surrogate problem.

With regards to the whole confidence nonsense , thats just another speculation following a long list from your part . Most of your speculations end up being crap at the end of the day anyway.

Lets have more substantive posts on the frontpage

If coordinated, and Presidential campaigns in my experience are more a loose confederation of waring tribes than a command/control organization, it is beyond stupid.

The Clintons want to destroy their opponents.  As anyone with even a passing familiarity with Machiavelli knows, in general this isn't really a vice in politics.

In this case, however, it is putting at risk her chances in a General Election that seems to me an even proposition at best.  Perhaps they believe there is enough time to make amends between Feb 5th and the Convention.

Screw Bob Johnson.

I'm a black woman who supports John Edwards.

Bob Johnson has probably done more than any other single individual to permanently cement negative images of black people in the psyche of America.  Under his leadership, BET provided a steady diet of booty-shakin', thug-glamourizing videos with little to no positive programming about black people to offset the negative.  He proudly admits that making money has always been his only goal.  That's his legacy.

As far as I'm concerned, Bob Johnson is a race traitor, and no black person with an ounce of self-respect should listen to anything he has to say about which candidate has the black community's best interests at heart.  I don't understand why Hillary is having that selfish SOB campaign with her because he isn't half the man Barack Obama is.

It is notable that I think he was introducing her...not just a spokesman.

I don't see anything wrong with what Bob Johnson said (and yes, Obama was doing drugs when the Clintons were out in the world making a difference). I'd hate to think there'd be a double standard implying that biting criticism from an African American supporting an African American candidate is okay, but biting criticism from an African American supporting a non-African American candidate is unacceptable. Obama's campaign started this who race debacle when JJJ declared that Hillary Clinton didn't shed a tear over the plight of New Orleanians... it's been a snowball of ugliness ever since.

...am getting a little tired of Todd's constant propaganda popping up. Try painting a fair picture instead of the typical one sided pieces that are typically written  by you.

If you look at the polls, the Clintons have already lost a significant amount of AA votes not only in South Carolina, but in the other states with a significant amount of AA voters as well.

Knowing that they've lost a significant amount of AA votes AND that Obama supporters are threatening to sit out the general election OR vote for the Republican if Clinton wins the nomination, what exactly does the Clinton campaign have to lose by using these passive aggressive tactics against Obama?

You guys think that the Clintons don't know what they're doing the past few weeks. I do think they know what they're doing. They're pretty experienced in the rough and tumble of politics. This campaign tactic is about subtraction, not addition.

I wouldn't be surprised if they win South Carolina or at least make it competitive at the end of the day.....

I still have not seen anything said by anyone's surrogate that comes close to the "Hillary didn't cry for Katrina" comment.  That's the low-water mark in my book.

" A wise friend of mine told me today her sense was that the Clinton campaign seems to already have written off South Carolina and is seeking to lessen the significance of an Obama win there by portraying it as a foregone conclusion because of his appeal among black voters. "

- Wow .

A " wise friend " of yours !!!.

A moron could have easily come up with that and claim he was the smartest thing around. .

It seems to me that the people of South Carolina wanted to have a primary so that the African American community could join in the political discourse.

From my vantage point, there is plenty of discourse in the South Carolina African American community right now...from Orpah Winfrey to Jesse Jackson, Jr. to Donna Brazille to James Clyburn to Bob Johnson...on topics as far ranging on racism in New Hampshire to whether LBJ and the Democratic Party played a role in the advancement of civil rights.

The fundamental question is whether or not the black candidate in this race wants to drive a racial wedge into the Democratic Party by continuing to accuse white Democratic politicians and voters of racism.

I am a Hillary supporter.  It seemed clear to me that during the coverage of the NH primary night certain talking points started to be worked into the narrative on the issue of race.  Donna Brazile started that night and then Jesse Jackson, Jr. the next day made those really nasty comments about Katrina.  Hillary did not start this narrative nor would she want to do that.  Why would she want to hurt her standing among black voters?  It was clear that the Obama people wanted to knock her out in SC and started this narrative.  And like always the Clintons pushed back and they pushed back hard.  Don't think for a minute that Obama is that different than any other politician.  He, just like Hillary, will use whatever technique or surrogate he can to gain an advantage.  And that's fine.  This isn't bean bag and the Rs are certainly not going to play nicely either.

The real story is who the surrogate is, the founder of freakin' BET.  Just another example of the obvious: that the Clintons are too popular in the black community for the Obama team to make the made-up charge of racism stick.  I don't care if he said Obama eats dog crap for breakfast, Bob Johnson gets respect because of what he has done.

A volunteer for the Clinton campaign in SC, I must disabuse Todd and everyone else of the notion that the Clinton campaign has conceded SC to Barack Obama.  

The Clintons can afford to lose SC particularly if they drive up Obama's negatives before tsunami tuesday.

My guess is this is a decision they have already made. Of course they won't ever admit to having written off SC...They couldn't...

Why not have a direct link to the ABC video?  It makes it abundantly clear what Bob Johnson's comments were about.  Look at the tone and gestures during the speech.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex? id=4128586&affil=wls

A wise friend of mine told me today her sense was that the Clinton campaign seems to already have written off South Carolina and is seeking to lessen the significance of an Obama win there by portraying it as a foregone conclusion because of his appeal among black voters.

Did I mention how the Hillary campaign is airing two different commercials in the Charlotte media market?

I strongly disagree with ademption that Clinton is writing off African Americans, regardless of whether Obama campaign is poisoning the well.

There is no 'racist Democrat' vote that Clinton can win over with dog-whistle politics, certainly not enough to be worth a damn. And even if there were they wouldn't be voting for Obama anyway. Obama, on the other hand, may be able to win some Clinton supporting African Americans if he can impeach Clinton's credibility with African Americans, and Obama must have the bulk of the African American vote to have any chance of winning the nomination.

The Shaheen remark may have been tone-deaf rather than racist, and Clinton moved swiftly to remove him from her campaign and apologized personally to Obama. The email incidents were also dealt with swiftly. Cuomo is a supporter, not a surrogate. Clinton has clearly condemned those statements, but defended her own statements and those of President Clinton. She is attacking Obama's rationales for his candidacy, and she knows that introducing race as a subtext would only harm her candidacy.

Obama, on the other hand, has tried to make hay out of any Clinton related statement that could be construed as racist, had a campaign spokesperson suggest that Clinton doesn't care about Katrina and that that would be important to African Americans in South Carolina, and has been quietly pushing the 'Bradley effect' story.

Obama benefits, he is driving the racist narrative, Clinton would prefer that it were never a subject in the campaign. Beeton's post here seems to me to be off base. And I am thoroughly confused by the implication that the founder of BET would be using dog-whistle racism, anti-drug use, sure.

Thanks Todd for raising this question -- for a candidate who is running on experience, competence and readiness to govern on day one, you'd expect that she would be able to stop her surrogates from continuing to make stupid statements attacking Obama that boomerang back at her- I'm stunned at the lack of message control coming out of the Clinton campaign, and pleased to see how reserved the Obama campaign has been in refusing to take the bait

Cite evidence, Todd, or please retract the claim that Hillary plans to concede SC.  

This is getting wearisome.

Now his whole image of hope and unity is shot. He destroyed himself.

All in an attempt to get the SC vote.

When the historians write his political obituary - whether it be the primary or the presidency (because he will NOT win), we will point to this moment.

I'm not signing up with Obama where we have to worry about comments being distorted and called racists if we say anything about race with dotting our i's or crossing our t's.

Intimating the Clinton's are making racist comments make moderate white folk think "If the first black president can be called racists, what are the rest of us in for?"

He destroyed his whole message.

A media billionaire looking for favorable regulations will say some crazy things.

Just ask Rupert Murdoch.

The Clinton campaign has been accused of a pattern of race-baiting remarks. Examples are the following:

(a) Bill Shaheen's remarks about Obama's youthful drug use, and the suggestion that the media will ask  him if he ever sold them. My opinion is that what Shaheen said was clumsy and could be considered a personal attack. He properly apologized, and Clinton properly fired him and apologized to Obama. But this is not a racist remark, as far as I can tell. Please tell me why I'm wrong if you disagree.

(b) Bob Kerrey's remarks about Obama's heritage as a foreign policy strength. I wrote a diary about this earlier--I think he genuinely meant to praise Obama. But even if it was somehow a vicious smear, I still don't understand why it would be racist, as opposed to religiously biased. Again, please tell me why I'm wrong.

(c) Two Clinton volunteers forward the filthy smear email to a couple of dozen people. They are properly fired for spreading this smear, and should have been fired again for lack of intelligence. Clearly not an indication of campaign-intended racism or racism of any sort.

(d) Hillary Clinton, in response to Obama's raising the issue of MLK and hopes/dreams, says that "I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in people's lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished."
To me, this is clearly not an insult of MLK. This quote has been published in a truncated form in major news outlets, which has led to a firestorm. Somewhat inartfully stated, but not racist. I understand why the quote (and especially its truncated version) could be read as downplaying King's contribution and sacrifice. But I doubt very much that there was race-baiting intent behind it.

(e) Bill Clinton describes Obama's claim that he has always been against the war a "fairy tale". Not racist. Not even close.

(f) Andrew Cuomo uses the phrase "shuck and jive" in a long discussion of the Iowa and New Hampshire contests. I wrote a diary about this as well. Clearly not racist.

(g) An "anonymous Clinton staffer" is quoted saying that some people want to vote for Obama because they want a hip imaginary black friend. This may be some botched reference to a character on the Colbert Report. A dumb thing to say, and conceivably racist in nature. However, there are a huge number of people who might call themselves anonymous Clinton staffers, and without any other information, this is hard to judge.

(h) Hillary Clinton says that Obama has not the necessary diplomatic "spade work". (People really are claiming this is racist. Seriously.) The willingness to call this racist is so silly as to undermine the case for any of the others.

(i) Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, makes a reference to Obama that appears to be about his youthful drug use. He later denies it. The denial strikes me as extremely contrived and unlikely. However, this is not racist. The founder of BET is not going to race-bait in the same sentence that he's trying to talk up Hillary Clinton's record on race relations, in front of an audience that has a sizeable fraction of African Americans, and in South Carolina, where the next major primary is going to take place. It makes no sense at all.

So of the above nine incidents, I find one of them to be a little tone deaf (the MLK one), and I note Clinton has clarified that several times by now. Another (the imaginary hip black friend) is questionable, but is fuzzy because of the vagueness of the source. Most of the others are plainly not intended to be racially offensive in the least, even if several of them might be thought of as attacks in other ways.

Finally, let's ask the question of motive and plausibility. To believe that these incidents, stretched over a period of a month, were part of an intentional pattern, you'd have to believe most of the following:

(1) Hillary Clinton means every word she says, and that her surrogates mean every word they say, even if they are speaking off the cuff in an interview. Despite the fact that Clinton is clearly not as accomplished a speaker as Obama or Edwards, and that she is a rather terrible actor, that she nonetheless never misspeaks or has something come out the wrong way.

(2) Hillary Clinton and her surrogates have made many hundreds if not thousands of stops and speeches in the last month, and spoken perhaps millions of words. Carefully hidden in these were some number of the above nine items. They were certain that all of these would be noticed among all of the other things that they said, be noticed by the closet racists in the Democratic Party, and cause them to vote for Clinton and not Obama. They also believed that the closet racists would each receive these coded messages, and yet they go unnoticed enough in the media that they wouldn't take a big hit for them.

(3) Alternatively, perhaps they are openly pushing race-baiting tactics, confident that whatever support they lose among African Americans and non-racist whites will be made up for by the large constituency of closet racists that vote in Democratic primaries. This constituency must be huge, given that African Americans make up around a fifth of the Democratic vote. Maybe these were the people who lied to the New Hampshire pollsters? Or maybe, this strategy makes about as much sense as John McCain's campaign secretly sending coded messages to atheists.

(4) John Lewis, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Jacqueline Jackson, and fifteen other members of Congress (not including Lewis) and dozens more elected officials at the state level have thrown their support behind someone who nakedly appeals to racist white people and belittles the accomplishments of blacks.

Or you could believe the following:

(1) That Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, who have devoted their lives to public service and who have worked for and supported progressive policies in race issues, are in fact people of good faith who are above racism and race-baiting. Because they're not perfect, they sometimes misspeak, and hire people who say dumb things on their behalf. And that even were this not the case, they would at least be smart enough not to deliberately alienate one of the most important constituencies in the Democratic Party.

I don't think his drug use should disqualify him. People do dumb things as kids. As long as nobody besides him was hurt, and he's stopped doing drugs, I think it should be a non-issue.

This also means it should be a non-issue, or not much of one, if someone brings it up.

Obama has destroyed himself and his campaign in order to garner a few votes in SC.

No one seems to realize that his strategy won't work in other states and will increase Hillary's margin.

Hillary and Barack both have people out there speaking for them that they need to tell "Sit down and shut up".

As some of us have been saying for awhile now.

When Isolated Incidents are neither

ISOLATED

nor

INCIDENTAL

They form a PATTERN.

Accept what the PATTERN tells you and respond accordingly.

Clinton Attacks Obama Wiki -Incident Tracker

Hillary's Billionaire Minstrel

Oreos and House Negroes: The Clinton Strategy Explained

Founder of Modern Minstrelsy Goes After Obama

Hillary Clinton team throws racially-tinged mud at Barack Obama nonstop