Also, if Black people just vote on race, where was Alan Keyes' huge wave of support?

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You're saying what I said from the beginning.

I can't find where the beef is.
Are we arguing about how much we agree? (hahaha)

Yeah, but he's going to be grouped with only one race. Guess which one.

Also, if Black people just vote on race, where was Alan Keyes' huge wave of support?

Mikkel, thanks for the audio. Listening to it, it sounds like Clinton wanted to say “white, blue collar worker” but botched it badly. It doesn't sound like she's saying “hard working Americans” and then “white Americans” as a separate entity, but that the two are tied. On the other hand, it doesn't sound like she's trying to play race to me either, just name the demographic. She's certainly talking race, basically implying that Obama can't carry the whites, but I don't see the race card in the “hardworking” line, personally.

The interesting thing is that this time last year, it looked as if Obama would have trouble with the African American vote, because the group was so loyal to the Clintons. In 1992, Bill lost the White vote across every demographic and it was the African American vote that put him over. The Lewinsky scandal (sorry to bring it up) never effected his support among African Americans in polls. And then he moved to Harlem… In short, we loved them as much as you could love any politician.

I think that the near unanimous voting is a form of censure. Gaffes that might might have been shrugged off as “eh, what do you expect” from another candidate are really hurting the Clintons because there is a perception that they should know better. To hear Bill or Hillary say completely clueless things, whether by mistake or on purpose, comes across as if the special relationship the Clintons seemed to have with the African American community was always a sham. As if they never really “got it.”

So please, no one complained about the monolithic nature of the African American voting block when we turned out in greater number than we ever had before for Gore and Kerry (I believe Nader got less than one percent of the black vote in 2000). I understand that we're very excited to get back the people who voted for Bush twice, but I believe even (or especially) the Clintons would have some respect for loyalty.

I wasn't objecting.so much as observing when I spoke about language in a general sense. Sometimes racial categories can't be ignored; sometimes it would be msileading to ignore them. I was pointing out the need for caution.
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Even speaking in terms of the white vote vs the black vote can be divisive, because it brings up the mental image of two separeate groups, one white and the other black.
So, the amount of time and emphasis spent reporting on these separate voting blocs has an impact.
I'm saying: don't avoid it, but be careful

When it comes to Hillary, I don't know for sure, what her intention was. As a politician dealing with all these voting demographics, I would expect her to, at least, be more careful in how she uses language. It's not like she's unaware of her black/white audience and how people react.

This is really a topic the media should address.
The PBS discussion was thoughtful, nunaced and iintelligent. No one claimed there was a simple answer.

I saw part of a disucssion at FOX, which was disgusting. They thought it was a joke. (I didn't see it in its entirety, though, so I may be off here.)

If we are taking her words literally — and I can still see this as a tic or a genuine case of misspeaking, so I doubt that this was her intent — she's assigning a desirable characteristic to this bloc of voters, while Obama has never sliced and diced his supporters demographically and then praised one subset, implicitly criticizing all those outside that group. And neither has Clinton, up until now.

It's a gaffe. She has started talking about race and class very clumsily, and it's not a good idea.

I have a suspicion that the older groups tend to vote the most straight ticket as well (does any one know if this is true) and being weak in that group would actually hurt him less than Hillary being weak in the under 45 group.

Lynx, I don't think disentangling “hard working” from her statement makes much sense. What kind of polling has been done showing that Clinton appeals to the hard-working and Obama appeals to the lazy?

You are mistakenly assuming that the statement has to be true to make sense. Obama often says that his supporters want a new direction for America, I could as easily ask if he's saying that Clinton's supporters want the same thing we've been fed for the past 8 years.

It doesn't even need to be read as an insult to the other side. “My supporters are good people, hard working people” doesn't mean that my opponents people are awful and lazy people.

So, in her mind, the best candidate is the one that can get the other types of votes out there. There is a logic in the argument, but it ignores the Hillery factor, i.e., the number of people who for various reasons will never vote for her, personally, in the general election.

And I think she is ignoring how much the overall black vote would self-suppress (as compared to voting Republican) as a reaction to her getting the nomination over Obama.

In the end, IMO, Obama will not be a shoo-in in the general election, but I cannot see how after how the way the Democratic primaries have played out, Clinton could possibly win the general election anymore.