Some Black Political Leaders Think Obama Would Kill Entire Ticket

A couple of black South Carolina political leaders have endorsed Hillary Clinton, and you may be surprised by their reasoning (h/t Captain Ed):

Two key black political leaders in South Carolina who backed John Edwards in 2004 said Tuesday they are supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

State Sens. Robert Ford and Darrell Jackson told The Associated Press they believe Clinton is the only Democrat who can win the presidency. Both said they had been courted by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama; Ford said Obama winning the primary would drag down the rest of the party.

"It's a slim possibility for him to get the nomination, but then everybody else is doomed," Ford said. "Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose — because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything."

"I'm a gambling man. I love Obama," Ford said. "But I'm not going to kill myself."

There's a couple of stories here. First of all, their attitudes toward a black candidate sound more like something a Jim Crow southern Democrat might have said 50 years ago, and their abandonment of John Edwards doesn't bode well for him, either.

Captain Ed wonders if the Clintons may be the authors of the "Obama kills the ticket" theory, but if they are, their fingerprints won't be found. They don't call them "slick" for nothing.