Stick to the data, and you should be safe from all but the hyperpartisans whose interest it's in to call you racist/sexist, etc.

We are so eager to kill the messenger, probably because the beneficiaries do not want the message to be heard.

Markos excoriated a pollster, and by extension the Clinton campaign, as racist because of his analysis. The pollster pointed out that Hispanics would not  favor of Obama in primaries. This was before Super Tuesday. Well we have seen exactly that result over and over since then.

Bigotry is alive and well in America. Denying doesn't make it go away.

The question is what role sexism and racism play in those facts being true. Do women support Hillary merely b/c she is a woman? Do some of them actually prefer Obama's policies, yet vote against their interests in the name of electing a woman? Do men really like Obama more, or do they simply not want a woman CiC?

The same questions should be raised as they relate to race. How much of that 90% is just pure racial vs. policy based vs. anti-Clinton? They are all valid, and I look forward to going over the evidence you produce.

Clinton does better with women.  That's a fact.  If you want to talk about whether sexism is part of the reason that's so, fine, but facts themselves are not sexist.

Similarly, it's not racist to say that Obama does better with African-Americans.  That's a statement of fact.

However the analysis that follows can be.

If someone uses the data to say that "we can't nominate Obama because he's black and America won't vote a black man" or "we can't nominate Hillary because she's woman and America won't vote for a woman" then you are using race or gender as a political wedge.  While not racist it is exploitative.

And I still cringe when recalling the goshawful advice that Gore go all "alpha male."   As I recall, it involved switching to corduroy slacks and plaid flannel shirts.

As you say, such a strange set of rules.  But yes, most fascinating may be that white men never practice identity politics, especially according to media.  The sort of media who fill up panels with all white men -- or, when discussing race, with no white men or women -- or, when discussing gender, with only women.

There was one of the various "epiphany" posts at daily kos not too long ago.  It was about someone's coworker apparently going from hardcore rightwing to voting for Obama - which they interpreted generously to mean seeing the light in terms of political ideology.

I saw it differently.  I saw a rightwinger who felt betrayed by the Bush administration and unwilling to embrace another Republican (or a particular Republican) candidate.  So he was looking for someone he could feel comfortable with and Obama fit the bill.  I doubt he suddenly went liberal and voted straight Democrat down ticket.

That searching for comfort and that gut check reaction plays a role in who people will vote for.  It always has.  Before it was various flavors of White Guys and it was assumed the difference was in the issues, styles and messages.  Now we have gender and race that might affect people's "gut feelings".

When women vote for Clinton, it's because they're stupid and don't know any better.

So I laugh at the Lou Dodds who freek that we do so (he has a short memory), just because we have, for the first time, candidates from those categories that previously were discussed as anonymous little people going to the polls to always vote only for white men.  Just because the candidates have those identities doesn't mean "identity politics" is a problem, nor is it problematic to discuss it.

It is how we conduct the discussion that matters.

Terminology helps.  There is a difference between racialized messages -- say, advertising with people of several racial categories -- and racist messages.  There is a difference between gendered messages -- say, addressing issues re reproductive rights -- and misogynist messages.

The advice that emerged in the era of the Anita Hill hearings, when men said they couldn't say or do a darn thing around the office, still applies:  

Would you say or do that if your white or African American or Latin@ or Asian American coworker or classmate were in the room?  Would you say or do that if your mother or father, your wife or husband, your daughter or son or sister or brother were in the room?  Would you say it to their faces?

In this case, would we say what we do if our family and friends of color or of another gender were standing behind us at the keyboard, reading what we say?  Would we say it aloud to them?

stop trying to find excuses for why hillary is losing.  fact is half of the country hates her including many, many, many democracts who see her for what she is. self serving dlc hack that only cares about herself and her corporate buddies.  she has run a lousy arrogant campaign thinking she would win long before she ever announced running.  the strategy was to forget about 2/3 of their constituents and only go for 'BIG' states.  they are the only states that matter. her name recognition alone will carry most of the states and most people vote for what is familiar.  turns out that has not been the case.

stop bring up silly sexist issues.  there is no way for her to 'win'.  her fault.  more women vote for her because she is a woman than men who vote otherwise.  same reason more black people will vote for obama than whites against him because of race.  both benefit.

From what has been recorded in the stats so far, it does appear that there is a sexist dynamic to those voting against (or even for) the female candidate.  Is that predicated no general upbringing and ingrained social training regarding the perceived "weakness" of one gender, or is that out of a general fear that if it is accepted that a female can lead the country it would lessen the value of males in some manner?  Who knows?

As for ethnic and racial voting, the statistics do indicate that there appears to be a general racial voting trend among African Americans for the candidate that they see as being the one they can ethnically or racially identify with.  This is an observation, so don't flame me, but the voting statistics are staggering (something like 85% or more for the primaries, so far).  Hispanics do seem not to favor that candidate.  Is this an ethnic thing, or is it that the other candidate has a long, established history with that community?  My understanding is that there has been some tension between groups in the past.  Is that because of the Spanish/Portugese influency, or because most Hispanics are part native Americans (regarding continental roots, not specifically from the US)?  I don't have enough of a reference to go by.  If there was a viable, front running Latino candidate in this race, would they behave the way the African America community has in regards to their identified candidate?

To me, one problem is that there is a tendency to consider the identity politics of white men as "politics as usual" (commander codpiece's epic performance) and the economic interests of white male household heads as a generic national interest (and as Phyllis Schlafley and the growing corps of blonde Republican women as spokespersons on the teevee demonstrate, white male identity politics is not just for white men). Unfortunately, there are also plenty of Democratic public policies - from Social Security to the GI Bill to technical re-education programs of the 1990s - that did not just support the political economy of the middle and working classes, but also continued to produce wage and civil rights gaps between men and women, white and non-white.

So, I can imagine that, when many non-whites and women vote, they not only have to consider the impact of public policies on the whole economy, they must also consider the potential for those policies to enlarge or reduce the wage/achievement gap in America. The impact of proposed policies on the wage/achievement gap presumably ranks highly in the political rationale of such voters. Rather than just the superficial "tribal" identities, there are probably substantive policies or meaningful rhetoric that appeal to voters who vote for an "in-group" candidate. A big part of both Clinton's and Obama's "identity politics" coalitions may reflect this and many other reasonable political estimations about the candidates' overall platforms.

While the Democratic party is certainly not beyond  racism or sexism, I think painting all male and all non-African-American voters as either sexist or racist is a specious statement by either campaigns (and what I despise most about the current environment on unnameable blogs). Obviously, many Asian-Americans and Mexican-Americans may actually think that the wage/achievement gap will be reduced more effectively with Clinton's program rather than Obama's program. "Minority" is not a generic identity of identity politics, minority identities are particular and multi-faceted.

White men then represent the most problematic group in the demographic analysis, the most common "man on the street" interviewee that affirms the media's and the campaigns' deepest suspicions that we are all racists and sexists now (and does not that just play into the Republicans' wildest fantasies of a new American century?). However, I hope that many Democratic white men are now capable of seeing the economic benefits to themselves if the wage and occupational gap with nonwhites is reduced--particularly in competitive labor markets with highly gendered and racialized occupations like the rust belt states. Likewise, many Democratic white men seem entirely capable now of recognizing the economic benefits to their own household income if their mothers, wives, and daughters did not have to work in business environments with highly questionable wage or promotional gaps. If Democratic white men favor one achivement/wage gap over the other achievement/wage gap, there may be reasons - not racism or sexism - that explain how these two Democratic coalitions have emerged around Clinton and Obama (and why Edwards never got off the ground).

Guess who wins?  Not the women, not the AA's, not the Latinos and not the Gay community.  We all lose.  This is about class.

 Personally, I do hold Obama responsible for making it an election about his "person" and not about the issues we are facing.  He has created a feeble movement that is held together by "his person" not by the ideals. In the process of creating this feeble movement, he has damaged the old alliances.   I wanted the Democratic lines to be forged together:  Labor, minorities, elderly, and add to that youth.  But we have devolved into mini bickerings that truly are not dignified.  They distract and we have no time.