The Other Firewall That Could Derail Clinton's Campaign

The other day Politico ran a piece titled “Inside the Clinton Shake-Up: How Hillary’s campaign managed itself into a ditch — and how it might get itself out.” Correction: That was the title of a piece from the Atlantic. Politico’s headline was “Clinton Weighs Staff Shake-Up After New Hampshire.” The Politico piece ran Feb. 8; the Atlantic one in February 2008. …

The cliché has been that minority voters, particularly blacks, constitute Mrs. Clinton’s “firewall.” At the outset of the 2008 campaign blacks were widely expected to be loyal Clinton backers too, but they turned out to be the fire rather than the wall. …

The [Daily] Beast’s [Goldie] Taylor notes that “the most recent poll” puts Mrs. Clinton ahead among blacks “by a four-to-one margin.” We think that’s a South Carolina poll, as the most recent national one, from Quinnipiac, doesn’t come with a racial breakdown. The topline numbers, however, look ominous for Mrs. Clinton: She leads Sanders by just two points, 44% to 42% — and that was before New Hampshire.

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