Clinton. Obama Back Away From "Pose Off"

Maybe it was Sen. Barack Obama calling it all "silliness." Or the calendar, reminding everyone that it was the week that we honor Martin Luther King Jr. Or as our Senior Washington Editor Ron Elving writes, the comment of former President Bill Clinton who told black radio host Tom Joyner that "the only racist remark of the campaign" was the Obama camp calling Hillary Clinton "the senator from Punjab."

Sometimes it takes a little reductio ad absurdum to reveal a pose off for what it is, as Ron points out in his Watching Washington column. Whatever the reason, the dissing Democrats have backed off their over-heated remarks about race and who is or isn't the best candidate to represent the views of African-Americans.

Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised at this turn of events.

"It may have been inevitable that a presidential season that featured the first truly competitive campaigns by a woman, an African American, a Hispanic American, an Italian American, a Mormon and an ordained Southern Baptist preacher would eventually produce some angry talk about who can and can't be president. In this campaign cycle, we take on not just the glass ceiling but the color bar and the religious test all at once. Two of the candidates are past 70, so let's throw in the age issue, too."

But the candidates seem to be ready to move on. Whether or not the truce will hold is another question. As Ron says, we've seen how tense the Democrats' internal struggle could become in the next few weeks and "how easy it would be for the party to sap its own momentum in a year of historic electoral opportunity."

5:05 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink