The candidates can agree race should play no part in the campaign, and reach a "truce" on the issue, but it just won't go away in the Democratic primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (John Edwards is also still campaigning, apparently to show off his hair). David Espo writes for the Associated Press:

"Senator Obama and I agree completely that, you know, neither race nor gender should be a part of this campaign," Clinton said Tuesday night in a debate in Las Vegas.

That's one agreement unlikely to count for much.

Next up for the Democrats are Saturday caucuses in Nevada, where Clinton's allies already betray concern about the impact of minority voters on her prospects. A handful of her supporters went to court, trying to prevent several so-called at large precinct caucuses from being held along the Las Vegas strip.

Their concern is that thousands of Culinary Workers local members in Las Vegas, whose union has endorsed Obama, will attend caucuses conveniently located near their work places and hand him a victory. The union represents 60,000 employees, about 45 percent of them Latino, 30 percent white and 10 percent black.

Read the entire piece at the link provided. Once race is injected into a campaign, it is almost impossible to remove it. It always remains, at least, as a subtext - but the reactions from some of Obama's black supporters, the provocations of some of Hillary's black supporters, and the expressed concerns from "neutral" black leaders ensure that, in this campaign, it will stay near the forefront. Once race enters the campaign, it's like a turd in a punchbowl: even if you fish it out, everyone knows it was there.

The question of whether Hillary's backers are behind the lawsuit over "casino caucusing" in Nevada strikes me as odd, though. Since race is already on the table, may I observe that voters of Hispanic origin tend not to support black candidates, historically? So wouldn't Hillary be better served by allowing the predominately Latino union workers to caucus on the job, despite their union's endorsement of Obama?

Or is it racist to even notice that?