Washington Post/ABC Poll: Donald Trump Leads Hillary Clinton; 11-Point Swing Since March

But the attack that received the most pop, on cable television and blogs, came after a photograph of Mr. Obama in ceremonial African garb appeared on the Drudge Report, and the item’s author, Matt Drudge, claimed that the image was provided by a Clinton staff member.

Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, said that the Clinton campaign had “engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party.” It has not been independently verified that the photograph came from the Clinton campaign.

But some of Clinton’s most memorable ‘08 shots at Obama have had resonance far beyond the short shelf life of the standard campaign hit parade: her mockery of his vow to transform Washington in his own image, her cry of “elitism” and her skepticism about his managerial chops echo today in the form of GOP attacks and the lingering doubts of some in his own party.
... But several more intrepid ex-aides pointed to one quote in particular: a Clinton broadside delivered in Toledo, Ohio, on Feb. 24, 2008, that represented her most stinging attack on Obama’s core hope-and-change message.

“I could stand up here and say: let’s just get everybody together, let’s get unified,” Clinton said, voice dripping with contempt long since discarded.

“The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know that we should do the right thing, and the world would be perfect,” Clinton added. “Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this will be. You are not going to wave a magic wand…”

New York City, NY — In the aftermath of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary [won narrowly by Hillary Clinton] — a race in which Clinton had a 20-point lead only a few months ago — the racism and hypocrisy of the Clinton campaign were laid bare for all a nation to scorn.

Desperate and willing to do anything to win, the Clintons resorted to a naked form of racism aimed directly at white working-class voters in the rural portions of the state. Their message: Barack Obama cannot win because he’s black.

In the early stages of the campaign, it was Clinton’s cadre who kept playing the race card. In New Hampshire, Clinton’s co-chair, Billy Shaheen, accused Obama of being a drug dealer; then there was the photograph of Sen. Barack Obama in Somali garb leaked to the press by Clinton’s staff.

In the aftermath of the South Carolina primary, former President Bill Clinton compared Obama’s victory to those of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988. His message was clear: Obama was a marginal, black candidate.