Buchanan to the rescue!

You know things are bad in the media when it is Pat Buchanan that is defending the Democratic Party against allegations of racism! (transcript courtesy digby):

Buchanan: ...I think there's a lot of special pleading here, going on right now. All those races you mentioned were general election races. This was a race inside the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton benefited from a surge of women to her candidacy. Edwards collapsed. The Bradley Effect cannot explain why Edwards did so poorly when the pollsters said he was going to beat Hillary Clinton. I think the piling on by the media, and the gloating over her tears, and people thinking coming out of Iowa that you're supposed to coronate Barack Obama was a tremendous backlash among New Hampshire, voters and independents said you're not gonna impose your fellow on us, we'll choose our own, and the women said we're gonna go in there and we're gonna pick up Hillary Rodham Clinton and stop what's bein' done to her.

Matthews: You sound like Alan Alda Pat. Where's this new sensitivity towards women's aspiration coming from? Buchanan: Look I think the Obama spinners and the media are trying to explain why they have egg all over their faces. By doing this you are tarnishing Hillary Clinton's victory and tarnishing the Democratic Party as racist.

Matthews: No, no that's not what I'm doing here. I'm trying to explain.

Buchanan: Well, whoever's attacking this Chris, whoever says this was racism was tarnishing the Democratic Party and...

More from Digby:"The takeaway "insight" from this Hardball was that the Democratic race is now a battle between the racist old bitches and the sexist African Americans. Fabulous. (White men like Chris, you'll notice, are the only ones voting purely on the merits in this little scenario.)"

People are always looking for some nefarious reason for things not working out the way they expected. Why can't they just accept that maybe their expectations were wrong to begin with? (That's a rhetorical question dont'cha know)

And even more Digby: "But making a big deal out of The Bradley Effect will end up weakening Obama overall in my view. Pat Buchanan shockingly wasn't too far off in his assessment: if people begin to actually believe Obama can't win even in a Democratic primary, because of hidden racism, it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. I can't see why Obama's spokesmen would want to get this meme started. People who are on the fence could easily get the idea that it's not worth voting for him because the racists are all lying to the pollsters and he can't win."

This is a vitally important point that the Obama people have to be careful about. It is my understanding that Obama's polling among blacks in South Carolina jumped dramatically after his Iowa victory. Part of that was attributed to the theory that many blacks wanted to support Obama but just didn't believe he could get the votes of the white folks. His Iowa victory dispelled that fear and his latent support in the African American community responded.

Now, if the Obama campaign starts to seriously push the idea that the only reason they lost in New Hampshire was because of latent racism they will re-invigorate the fears of the AA community and undermine his unity message.