The thing is, if Hillary does manage to pull out a win here by using coded racial messages to attack Obama, the only way for her to win in the general election will to be to try and scare blacks turned off by her tactics back to the polls in November by convincing them that a McCain presidency would be a return to the old segregationist ways of the South (or worse).
Scare tactics are nothing new — the NAACP ran that infamous ad in 2000 linking George W. Bush to the James Byrd dragging death in Southeast Texas in an effort to get Al Gore elected (never mind that two of the three participants got the death penalty in Texas courts and the other got life), and as Julian Bond’s recent statement showed, that group is still in the Clinton camp. Tarring the pending GOP nominee is going to be tougher, because Arizona doesn’t have the same stigma of racial animosity that East Texas does, but if Hillary does end up with the nomination, I expect the GOP nominee to be portrayed as John McKlan by the time the election is over, in order to drive black turnout the Clintons need to win the swing states in November.
