Leaving SC Obama Takes the High Road, Bill Clinton Takes the Low Road

And Obama will be in Alabama afore ye!

Here's what Obama said after his blowout landslide in South Carolina:

"The choice in this election is not about regions or religions or genders," Obama said at a boisterous victory rally. "It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it's not about black versus white. It's about the past versus the future."

Barrack Hussein Obama
Remarks in Victory Speech
Columbia, SC

But Bill Clinton wasn't about to let it go at that. ABC's Jake Tapper files this report as Clinton left the state:

Said Bill Clinton today in Columbia, SC: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

This was in response to a question about Obama saying it "took two people to beat him." Jackson had not been mentioned.

Boy, I can't understand why anyone would think the Clintons are running a race-baiting campaign to paint Obama as "the black candidate."

In a later report, Tapper relays the email he received from a friend of his who is black: He writes: "Of all the things Bill Clinton has said, that comparison to Jesse Jackson is the most obvious -- and odious -- race baiting that he's done."

Again, if a Republican President or any senior GOP leader used overt racial messages in this way there would be a firestorm of media criticism. Remember what happened to Trent Lott? And Lott wasn't trying to influence the outcome of the presidential nominating process by dividing voters over the issue of race.