This came out of the mouth of one of Hillary Clinton's surrogates, the governor of Pennsylvania :

Gov. Ed "Don't Call Me 'Fast Eddie' " Rendell met with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week to talk about his latest budget. But before turning the meeting over to his number-crunchers, our voluble governor weighed in on the primary fight between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and what the Illinois senator could expect from the good people of Pennsylvania at the polls:

"You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate," he said bluntly. Our eyes only met briefly, perhaps because the governor wanted to spare the only black guy in the room from feeling self-conscious for backing an obvious loser. "I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann [2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate] been the identical candidate that he was --well-spoken [note: Mr. Rendell did not call the brother "articulate"], charismatic, good-looking -- but white instead of black, instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so."

I know I have a habit of sometimes zoning out in these meetings, but it sounded to me like Mr. Rendell had unilaterally declared Pennsylvania to be Alabama circa 1963.

On a mailing list I am part of, people made this point about the Clinton campaign : if it is not mysogyny, then it must be the latinos who'd never vote for a black man or, as in Rendell's Hillaryland, white people who would never vote for a black man.

Now, here's some questions I have :

1. As a supporter of Hillary Clinton, how can you not agree with the fact that many of her surrogates insist in selling non-black voters as closet racists --and using that as political capital?

2. This question is particular suitable for Armando (Big Tent Democrat) over at Talk Left* : If this is coming from her campaign, how do you expect Obama supporters to blindly support Hillary in the event she became the nominee?

More important to me is the cognitive dissonance I get when I hear Armando's argument that either candidate would be a good nominee :

3. Without using the questionable "experience" meme,

a. If as a Hillary Clinton supporter you believe Obama and Clinton are the same in policy and politics, why would you not support Obama now?

b. What's keeping you back?

c. And how can Obama supporters really know that what is keeping you back now will not play a role in not questioning and supporting Obama's candidacy once he becomes the obvious front-runner for the nomination?

Discuss.

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* I won't link to the site because it makes my browser crash every time I've tried to view it. It's title "The Need For Unity".