A few days ago, DP post Hillary Does Business noted that the former First Lady slipped $200,000 to a black rainmaker in South Carolina for his support. Why South Carolina?

Support from black voters is key in South Carolina, where 49 percent of the Democratic presidential primary vote came from blacks in 2004. The state will host the first Southern primaries for both the Democrats and the GOP in 2008.

Mrs. Clinton’s next calculation has continued the theme:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war.

“I personally would like to see it removed from the Statehouse grounds,” the New York senator said during her first trip to the early voting state since announcing her White House bid.

I take it she wants to make sure Obama doesn’t capture those black votes and get the traction, credibility and publicity that will accompany a win in the first primary. Part of Clinton’s strength is appearing invincible, and losing would cast doubt on an important Clinton subtext: this isn’t a gritty campaign, it’s a graceful coronation befitting a very presidential lady. “Bestial Hillary” is someone who can’t afford to step from behind the curtain before November 2008.

But in South Carolina she’s riverboat gambling. Southerners are States Righters, and don’t take kindly to carpetbaggers meddling in their business. Come the election they might kick her entitled Yankee fanny back north of Mason-Dixon.

UPDATE:

Mark Levin reviews the treatment of the Confederate flag in Arkansas during the 12 years Mrs. Clinton’s husband was governor.

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