Will the Cultural Fight between Obama and Clinton Camps Cost Democrats the White House?

The American Prospect surveys what the Obama and Clinton campaigns are specifically doing against one another to blow the Democratic campaign to retake the White House.

Neither Obama nor Clinton is running on their identity, but because the substantive policy differences between them are so small, identity has become central to their showdown. Even with the best of intentions, this kind of competition can easily take an ugly turn as incidental remarks or minor episodes get turned into symbols of seeming disrespect or are suspected of being forms of strategic insinuation .... a referendum on racism and sexism in the spring does not seem like a prelude to victory in the fall. Keeping the election focused on the manifest failures of conservative Republican leadership is the only way the Democrats can grasp the opportunity at hand.

So true.

And the media (both mainstream and bloggers) would rather hone in on the overwrought melodrama between Obama and Clinton instead of on the real issue of racial politics over on the Republican side.