Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 By MICHAEL DUFFY
((This is why I said in another post that the two (Hillary & Barack) would do well to get this matter resolved and not let the media lead them down this path as they are doing. Both Hillary & Barack & the dems are above this.))
From: Time Magazine................
Whenever longtime Democrats gather to note how the chemistry and calculus of the 2008 campaign seem to favor their party this year, one or another will always add some version of the following: "Yeah, but we could screw this up before it's over."
After the past few days, the pertinent question to ask is, is the crack-up happening already? Far-fetched as it would have seemed a month ago, the seeds of self-destruction are being planted in the war of coded words about race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The bickering has exploded in the space of a week into Topic A in the Democratic race, supplanting for the moment the war and the economy and health care — and shows no sign of a quick resolution.
So yes, are the Democrats about to screw it up yet again?
Both campaigns are stoking this fire — and worrying at the same time about what this could do to them in the fall. They ought to be concerned: Keep this up and neither candidate may be able to marshal the votes from the various corners of the Democratic coalition that he or she will need in the fall. As pollster Andrew Kohut has noted, a party which found that it had at least two candidates who were seen as widely "acceptable" to its various factions just a few weeks ago could soon find that happy consensus has evaporated.
Link to Time article:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1703310,00.html