Hillary's Southern Strategy?

So much for conciliation: from this audio on Ben Smith, the she-Clinton is starting to sound like George Wallace:

'White Americans

'Here's the full audio of that quote, which also includes some discussion of independents.

'Not the ideal way to keep wavering black superdelegates with her.'

And Smith's followup:

'The Obama campaign, in a conciliatory mood, isn't responding to Clinton's "white Americans" line — though it's prompting outrage in the blogosphere. Obama aide Steve Hildebrand says they haven't heard complaints about it from superdelegates.

'I'm of two minds about it.

'On one hand, as Crowley points out, it was perhaps a matter of speaking plainly about what the media and partisans of both sides have been chattering about for months. David Axelrod defended Obama's viability not long ago by saying that "the white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections."

'And the AP article Clinton was referring to, headlined "Race Key in NC...," did say more or less what Clinton said it said, though her language — "hard-working Americans, white Americans" — is rankling with people who think she's making an equation there.

'And the candidate's blunt discussion of race runs the risk of turning her more abstract "electability" argument into a case for the nomination based on the assertion that white people won't vote for the black candidate. That's going to be very hard for many Democrats, particularly African-American superdelegates, to stomach, whether or not they think it's true.'

For Clinton's part, she's finally owned up to what we've long argued has been the Democratic Party's "where else will they go?" attitude toward minority supporters: 'Clinton rejected any idea that her emphasis on white voters could be interpreted as racially divisive. "These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that."'

Jack and Jill Politics, an influential African-American blog, isn't having any of it: "Hard-working Americans = white Americans. Right. The rest of us sit on our porches eating watermelon and plucking banjos.

"For some reason, despite this "broader base" Clinton still seems to be having trouble raising money, and you know, getting more votes than her opponent. But at this point any abstract metric besides votes or delegates that Clinton can use as a rationale for her candidacy becomes the only appropriate one to use.

"This kind of comment is less a description than an agitator, it's meant to give white voters the impression that they would be "disenfranchised" by an Obama win. It's a not so subtle effort to evoke racial resentment over Obama's success.

"But the truth is, Clinton won't win the white vote either, as Steve M. points out: According to CNN's 1996 exit poll, Bill Clinton lost the white vote (Dole 46%, Clinton 43%, Perot 9%). He lost the white male vote by an even larger margin (Dole 49%, Clinton 38%, Perot 11%). And he lost gun owners badly (Dole 51%, Clinton 38%, Perot 10%). However, Clinton won the popular vote overall. In 2000 -- when Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes -- he lost white males to Bush by a whopping 60%-36%, according to CNN's exit poll. He lost men overall 53%-42%. He lost whites overall 54%-42%. He lost gun owners 61%-36%. He lost small-town voters 59%-38% and rural voters 59%-37%. He lost the Midwest overall 49%-48%. I'm not saying these are goals to aspire to. I'm saying it's a myth that Democrats had Joe Sixpack in their back pockets until that snooty arugula-eater Barack Obama came along, and it's a myth that they suffer crushing defeats when bowlers and boilermaker-drinkers aren't on board. 49%-41%-8%, and he won 70% of the electoral votes.

"But it's a myth that Clinton needs to perpetuate to make a case for her continued candidacy."

NYT covers a TV debate last night between former Clintonistas Donna Brazile and Paul Begala, which got very tense when Begala 'said the party could not win in November with just “eggheads and African-Americans."