Bernstein on the Democratic endgame

Carl Bernstein analyzes possible scenarios for the end of the Democratic race for the nomination. He makes this observation about Hillary's recent comments regarding her "white" support:

One other factor now plays a bigger role in the vice presidential question than on the night of her defeat in North Carolina and her narrow win in the Indiana primary: her unequivocal assertion the following day that she has more support among white working-class voters than Obama has.

In an interview with USA Today, she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

It is difficult to overstate the negative effect this remark has had on superdelegates, party leaders and her Democratic colleagues in both houses of Congress. "That's not a way to land the plane," one of her key supporters said. "If you were a superdelegate, you'd say, 'We have to shut this down right away.' "

But others worried that her words were calculated, that by venturing into such risky, rhetorical territory about race, she might put Obama under increased pressure to take her on the ticket before more damage and loss of support from her working-class base is felt.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, an old Clinton friend, said Friday that she had made a major mistake in suggesting "that hardworking Americans are white people."

"This statement has got to be dealt with by Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton alone," he said on MSNBC's "Hardball."

"The sooner she does that," she said, "the sooner her ship is going to start sailing in a better direction."