Primary games

The outgoing political adviser to President George W. Bush really spiced up the beach-going doldrums by suggesting — in more than one interview — that Hillary Clinton is just too disliked to win the presidency.

The fascination with all things Rove won’t end when he leaves the White House at the end of this month. He’s still feared by the left as the end-all-be-all political whiz — his predictions in last fall’s congressional races notwithstanding.

Rove began ratcheting up the rhetoric last Tuesday in an interview with Reuters when he said what a lot of Democrats fear about Hillary. “She’s not like a fresh and new character,” Rove said. “She’s someone who has been essentially known to the American people for 16 years. It’s going to be hard to change the perceptions that people have had.”

He followed that up with similar remarks on the Sunday news circuit. Rove hit “Fox News Sunday,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

He must have told ABC he had a scheduling conflict — all that last-minute spin to unwind.

At any rate, Rove’s comments set the speculation machine a whirring. The Associated Press on Monday suggested national Republican attacks on Clinton may be designed to get Democrats to rally around her because the GOP would rather not face Barack Obama or John Edwards.

Maybe it’s just Rove being Rove and doing what he does best — sticking his pudgy finger on a popularity poll and realizing there’s plenty there to exploit.

This month, a USA Today-Gallup poll found 49 percent of Americans viewed Clinton unfavorably. A new Quinnipiac poll has her faring better at 43 percent unfavorable.

For comparison, a poll taken for the Review-Journal on the eve of the 2004 election found 41 percent of Nevada voters had an unfavorable view of Democratic nominee John Kerry. Even after the swiftboating, Kerry was still ahead of where Clinton begins.

Rove’s just calling what he sees to gin up the base. Funny, though, but he didn’t mention Obama.

The only recent Republican mention of the junior Illinois senator seems to be a blind item in the Washington Whispers column in the Aug. 19 issue of U.S. News and World Report. An unnamed GOP adviser suggests Obama still has a chance to win the nomination.

In addition to theories about Rove’s motives regarding Hillary Clinton, other observers believe there may be a concerted GOP effort to drive Democrats away from Clinton to Obama. And if that’s the case, race might be be front and center in the move.

In 2000, John McCain won an impressive 19-point win over Bush in the New Hampshire primary and was picking up momentum.Then came South Carolina. Another simple fact uncovered by Rove’s team was that the McCains had an adopted daughter from Bangladesh.

The push polls went out asking voters if they knew about McCain’s illegitimate child who was black. At the same time, a Bob Jones University professor sent an e-mail to fellow South Carolinians stating McCain had “chosen to sire children without marriage.” Who knows what was more upsetting to South Carolina voters in that smear campaign — the alleged child out of wedlock, or the alleged fact she was black.

Clinton has plenty of baggage to bring to the American South if she wins the nomination. Obama won’t have just the “inexperienced” label to deal with. If the GOP’s using the same playbook, his biggest problem sadly, may still be the color of his skin. Here in the Mississippi of the West, would it be any better?

And which of the three “firsts” — woman, black or Hispanic — actually carries the most baggage in Nevada?

At first glance it’s easy to say sexism isn’t a barrier here. Dina Titus didn’t lose the governor’s race because she was a woman, it was because of her tax baggage. And Clinton probably doesn’t have half of the country against her just because she’s a woman.

But I still get anonymous calls from readers complaining about Clinton, calling her a bitch and suggesting she’s a lesbian.

The Clinton campaign says it hasn’t experienced any overt sexism. And race is also perceived as a non-issue in Nevada by both the Obama campaign and Bill Richardson’s campaign.

Richardson hopes his Hispanic heritage actually gives him the edge here. On Thursday, he’ll unveil his national Hispanic outreach group — mi familia con Bill Richardson — a grass-roots effort which began in Nevada.

Again, it’s not rocket science, but I’ve gotten calls suggesting Richardson’s a bad choice on immigration. One caller, who apparently hasn’t read the New Mexico governor’s proposal said, “He’ll give away the store.”

Obama draws diverse crowds to his Nevada events, and the campaign sees his skin color as a asset in the South Carolina primary where half of Democratic voters are black.

None of this should matter. Clinton, Obama and Richardson should all be judged on their proposals, experience and record.

At the end of the day, what they’ve done will go much farther than who they are, for better or worse.

Erin Neff’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.