We’ve noted in previous posts the increasing stridency of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s campaign statements in their battle against Democratic Senator Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic nomination — and now chickens may be coming home to roost in the form of Ms. Clinton’s possible loss of a civil rights movement veteran’s endorsement:

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, said he was rethinking his neutral stance in his state’s presidential primary out of disappointment at comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that he saw as diminishing the historic role of civil rights activists.

Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.

“We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. “It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.”

And thus the dilemma.

To “take it to ‘em” the Clintons have to turn to standard political practices. Which is demonize, denigrate, belittle or bring up the negatives of your opponent. Both parties do it…but the Clintons have assailed it when it has been done to them.

And they have come close to crossing the line in some instances. To wit:

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Mrs. Clinton, who was locked in a running exchange with Senator Barack Obama, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, over the meaning of the legacies of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tried to make a point about presidential leadership.

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Mrs. Clinton said in trying to make the case that her experience should mean more to voters than the uplifting words of Mr. Obama. “It took a president to get it done.”

A big mistake, and she realized it:

Quickly realizing that her comments could draw criticism, Mrs. Clinton returned to the subject at a later stop, recalling how Dr. King was beaten and jailed and how he worked with Johnson to pass the landmark law. Clinton advisers said her first remark had not captured what she meant to convey. And they said she would never detract from a movement that has driven her own public service.

And there was a second huge error:

Mr. Clyburn, reached for a telephone interview Wednesday during an overseas inspection of port facilities, also voiced frustration with Mr. Clinton, who has described Mr. Obama’s campaign narrative as a fairy tale. Mr. Clinton was not directly discussing civil rights, but Mr. Clyburn saw the remark as a slap at the image of a black candidate running on a theme of unity and optimism.

“To call that dream a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us,” said Mr. Clyburn, who said he and others took significant risks more than 40 years ago to produce such opportunities for future black Americans.

The fight for the black vote in the state primary has been under way for months. One legacy Mrs. Clinton had hoped to inherit from Mr. Clinton was his strong support among black voters. Even after Mr. Obama’s entry into the race, Mrs. Clinton did not give up hope of winning a substantial share of the African-American vote. She worked hard to win endorsements from prominent black leaders like Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a highly respected civil rights activist, even as her opponent won celebrity backing from Oprah Winfrey.

After Mrs. Clinton lost to Mr. Obama in Iowa, even her top supporters judged the South Carolina Democratic primary, set for Jan. 26, to be out of reach. Representatives of both campaigns were virtually ceding much of an African-American voting bloc that could represent half of the primary electorate to Mr. Obama by virtue of his strong victory in Iowa.

But Mrs. Clinton’s triumph in New Hampshire on Tuesday restored some sense of competitiveness in the Democratic race in a state that also has a serious Republican rivalry under way.

As a result, Mr. Clyburn’s stamp of approval could carry significant last-minute weight given his standing among African-Americans and his deep political connections throughout the state, as well as the role he played in winning the right for South Carolina to have the showdown.

“His influence would be extraordinary if he should endorse somebody,” said Don Fowler, a longtime South Carolina Democratic activist and former national party chairman who is backing Mrs. Clinton.

And it would matter, indeed. The New York Times notes that after Iowa Obama had convinced many South Carolina black voters that he could indeed win over white voters, and his political stock rose. Mrs. Clinton’s camp hoped her chances were improved by New Hampshire — but analysts believe Obama has made great gains.

The Clinton camp does face a dilemma. It needs to toss out the talk about Dr. King not being able to enact his dream, and basically lock Bill Clinton up in a room: in terms of political rhetoric, he’s becoming a loose cannon who increasingly is turning Hillary Clinton’s campaign into less of an Elect Senator Clinton The Solid Senator From New York campaign to Elect Hillary My Wife And You Get Me Too campaign.

The extent of the Clinton’s campaign difficulty in what it and its supporters say either intentionally or otherwise can be seen also in a new flap where a prominent Clinton associate is (again) accused of using negative innuendo when it comes to Obama and (again) says it wasn’t intentional. This time it’s an allegation involving racial code words.