Is Hillary playing the reverse race card?

At first, the string of vaguely racially insensitive comments coming from the Clinton camp seemed like ham-fisted mistakes. Why would Hillary Clinton make that awkward comment about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, which infuriated much of the black political establishment? Why would Bill Clinton say that Hillary is tougher than Nelson Mandela? Why would Andrew Cuomo say that Obama wouldn't be able to "shuck and jive" at press conferences? And most peculiarly, why would these seasoned political vets (including Bill Clinton, who was so well-liked among black voters that some called him "the first black president") make all these awkward comments right before the South Carolina primary, where 50% of registered Democrats are black?

After Hillary's press conference yesterday, I can't help but think that her strategy is to provoke the Obama camp into complaining about racism, using comments that stop just short of being unquestionably offensive as gambits to draw a response from Obama. Then, when Obama responds, Clinton can claim that Obama is playing the "race card" - which is one of the easiest ways to galvanize white voters' support. (I'm not the first to make this argument - a Talking Points Memo post comes to the same conclusion, and that blog's bewilderment over Hillary's racial comments has made for great reading all week.)

What about the black vote, you ask? I think Hillary is starting to write off the black vote, realizing that the main reason for black voters' hesitation about Obama has been the fear that he can't get enough support from whites. So the fact that the MLK-Lyndon Johnson comment may offend some blacks is no longer as relevant to her - and if she can use the ensuing fracas to claim that Obama is playing the race card, the gain in support among white voters (in SC, Nevada, and the rest of the country) will make up for the impending drop in support among blacks.

Sure enough, on "Meet the Press" yesterday, Clinton accused Obama's campaign of "injecting race" into the campaign, and "deliberately distorting" the MLK comment - in other words, of playing the race card, which is one of the most serious accusations one can make in post-OJ Simpson trial America. Maybe my instincts are wrong, and the Clintons are just being uncharacteristically naïve all of a sudden.

But as someone who grew up in North Carolina during the Jesse Helms days, there's no way I'm voting for Hillary if she keeps this up. (Clarification: I have already decided that I am pulling for Obama in the primaries - when I talk about whether I would vote for Hillary, I'm talking about the scenario where she wins the nomination.)

Clinton's Jan. 13 "Meet the Press Appearance" [MSNBC]
Gothamist round-up on the topic, with lots of links [Gothamist]