The Latino-Black War

It broke out in Nevada:

Now, I’m a connoisseur of ugliness in all its forms, I find it mostly entertaining, but the part of yesterday’s caucus that was so ugly as to be distressing was to see the Hispanic and black communities so polarized: The Clinton caucusers were predominantly Hispanic-American and the Obama caucusers were predominantly African-American - most on both sides were women - and they shouted and taunted each other with boos, cat-calls, hisses, thumbs down, and at one point one man on the Obama side began chanting, “I did not have sex with that woman!” (The apparent shop steward in the chef’s hat bolted over to him to tell him to shut up: “this is a serious caucus,” he said, succeeding in getting that soldier back in line.)

It was clear at that moment that while all the race-baiting of the past two weeks didn’t have the desired effect on most white Democrats, it had driven a stake between the Latinos and the blacks. And this, if it continues that way into California and other primaries, is going to mean bad news for the political futures of both groups. Democrats - this is a matter that is much bigger than Clinton v. Obama - have only nine days before the California primary to try and put out that fire before it burns down the house.