I, as I think many others, do not believe for one minute that Hillary or Bill or any of her surrogates are racist. However, I do believe that she is as Keith O has eloquently stated, is allowing her camp to play the race as well as other low blow cards (playing into various fear mongering stereotypes) about Sen. Obama.
This is where I think many in the stupid punditry class are missing the real reason for the overwhelming support of African Americans for Obama at the polls. It is not because he is Black because if that were true Al Sharpton would have done better at the polls by about 50 percentage points. The reason is that the Democratic base, African Americans, see the Clinton camp, with the outrage that Keith describes, as hitting Obama like a Republican, and this is the most offensive and unforgivable.
There are a lot of ways to go after your opponent in a Democratic contest. And that is totally expected, and all together fair, but to use the tactics of the really racist Rovian Republicans has alienated most African Americans and many others.
It is really not about being positive either. Arguing that Obama’s attributes like his experience or he is wrong on this issue or that can get very negative, but are political arguments. That would not be pleasant but would be totally understandable. They are both trying to win. The areas that all people consider unfair like a person's race/gender/religion/nationality/sexual origin or anything that feeds into stereotypes about those areas are what the GOP has used to promote fear and divide Americans for years now. This is the politics of the past that Obama and others are fighting to put to an end.