MARA LIASSON: I think that Super Tuesday is a wide variety of states. Now, in some southern states where there are big black populations in the Democratic primary electorate, like South Carolina, I think that Barack Obama’s going to do very well.
But in states where there are big Hispanic populations, I think the Clintons feel — even their own Hispanic pollster, Sergio Bendixen, has said it’s just a historical fact that Hispanic voters haven’t shown an affinity for voting for black candidates. I think they’re counting on that …

[Derb] Either Ms. Liasson is a keen reader of The New Yorker (and a thorough one — that Bendixen quote came right at the end of a long article), or she’s a Radio Derb listener. I included the Bendixen quote in one of my RD segments week before last:

There is also a dynamic going on between Hispanics and blacks that we’re not supposed to talk about, but that Hillary’s advisers are perfectly well aware of. Here’s a quote from one of those advisers, Sergio Bendixen, in the January 21 issue of The New Yorker, quote: “The Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” End quote. I shall leave you to decode that for yourself, noting only that Mrs. Clinton does not hire idiots to advise her.

I thought Sergio Bendixen’s remark was one of the most revealing in the campaign so far. Such was its power, in fact, that it finally got me believing that Dick Morris might be right about something …

Question for discussion: If Dick Morris is right, and the Clintons are dumping the black vote in favor of the white and Hispanic vote, shall we still, forty years from now, be hearing about how unspeakably wicked it is of them to do this? You know, they way we are still, forty years after the event, hearing about Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”?