I really still can't believe the dominant debate in the Democratic race for the White House is about race. Yes, there is a black man running this year who has a real chance to win his party's nomination.

But there is also a woman who has the chance to be the first female to capture a party's nomination as well - and that's not even an issue right now.

I don't care if you think the Barack Obama versus Bill and Hillary Clinton spat is a True Smackdown Over Race or a plot by either side to undermine the other. It isn't going away here in South Carolina, where about half the Democratic voters are black.

With his wife flying coast to coast over the last two days to visit some key states on Super Tuesday, Bill Clinton was again the standard bearer for his wife's campaign yesterday, as he made three stops Wednesday and has four more planned for Thursday.

In front of a small, racially mixed crowd at a restaurant in Charleston, the former President continued to draw distinctions between his wife and Obama on policy matters, trying his best to at the same time calm the Obama v Clinton waters.

"This is not about race or gender. This is about who would be the best President," said Mr. Clinton.

The former President argued that this is a historic election no matter who wins, making the point that it will be a "first" if Obama or Hillary wins the Democratic nomination.

"It is wrong to accuse somebody who has a difference with Senator Obama of being a racist, or somebody who has a difference with Hillary of being a sexist," Clinton told the gathering, which was very receptive to his arguments regarding race.

I certainly don't expect Bill Clinton to back down no matter how many people in his party tell him to clam up. He is a political animal and he knows that Hillary would be handicapped big time by an opponent who can't be criticized.

If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, there will be some hand wringing in some quarters of the black community for sure.

Good To Be Back In South Carolina

As I flew down to Charleston yesterday, I couldn't help but think of the four previous times that I have been here to cover elections.

Oddly enough, my first visit in the 1992 primaries also had echoes of race, as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was on the ballot that year along with Pat Buchanan and then President George Bush the First.

I clearly remember covering a speech that Duke gave at a small college in South Carolina. I was wondering if we were going to have some kind of brawl, but he toned down his rhetoric and thus the speech was a bit of a bust.

Now, 16 years later, there is a black man not only running for President, but with a serious chance to win the Democratic Party's nomination. Times have changed indeed.

I am writing this part of my blog as I wait for Barack Obama to speak at a high school in Dillon, not far from the infamous South of the Border for those of you familiar with I-95....

The event is in a high school gymnasium and while there are a good number of people here, it is nothing like the rallies I saw Obama hold in Iowa and New Hampshire.

This is what makes gauging support for candidates so difficult after you leave the confines of Des Moines and Manchester. The general populace knows that a campaign is going on, but they aren't galvanized like they are in the first two states.

The polls certainly indicate that Obama is on his way to victory and a solid one at that in South Carolina, with Hillary Clinton running a strong second and John Edwards a distant third.

I will be paying very close attention to how accurate the polls are here. This is only our second primary that has involved both Clinton and Obama, and we all remember how off the poll numbers were in New Hampshire.

Echoes of the Republicans Up I-95 and I-75

As I drove over 300 miles around South Carolina today, I managed to listen to my fair share of talk radio, trying to draw some insights on the state of the Republican race.

Without naming names, but you can figure them out, the idea of John McCain getting the nomination still leaves the Power Brokers of Talk Radio sputtering and coughing like a bad outboard motor.

The fade in the polls that seems to have hit Mike Huckabee in Florida cannot be written off as unimportant. If Huckabee is on a downward slide and Rudy Giuliani does not win Florida, we are on the verge of having the GOP race narrowed to just McCain and Mitt Romney.

It has been very clear to me that the Talk Radio Denizens are more than ready to do everything they can to stop John McCain. And if Mitt Romney is the candidate to hang their hat on, that will work just fine with them.

I will say this again - if Fred Thompson gets out of the race after the New Hampshire Primary, I think that Mike Huckabee would have won the South Carolina Primary last weekend.

Instead he finished second and the media stories have not been about his "near miss" but about how he's running out of money. He really needs a good finish in Florida.

But if Hucakbee can't do better than a weak third or fourth, that won't help him raise money for Super Tuesday. And if Giuliani finishes down there as well, then we will indeed have a McCain v Romney race.

A new poll out yesterday from the St. Pete Times and Miami Herald showed McCain slightly ahead of Romney, with a gap to Giuliani and Huckabee.

One very interesting note from that poll was that 27 percent of those surveyed said they still might change their minds before the Florida primary on the 29th.

One thing I really wonder about in the polls - what about the people who have already voted? What about the early voters who put Thompson down? We shall see.

Hillary Returns to South Carolina
After a two day blitz that took her from California to Arizona, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton will be back in South Carolina today, as she gives a speech on the economy at Furman University.