Starting Gate: Read It In The News

Race Raised Again? Race has taken a backseat as an issue in the wake of the South Carolina primary, where several comments by Clinton officials and supporters backfired against the candidate. But it's never going to be too far away from the front pages.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton backer, is trying to tamp down any speculation that he's trying to re-inject race into the campaign. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asserted that there were some voters in the state who likely would not vote for a black candidate, and cited his 2006 campaign against Republican Lynn Swann as evidence.

"You've got conservative whites here," Rendell said, "who are not ready to vote for an African American candidate. I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann been the identical candidate that he was -- well-spoken, charismatic, good-looking but white instead of black -- that instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so. I think there was that factor there. And that exists, but on the other hand, that's counterbalanced by Obama's ability to bring new voters into the electoral pool."

That comment spurred lots of negative reaction, with Swann telling the Philadelphia Inquirer, "a comment like that, made by the governor of the state, institutionalizes racism."

Appearing in an interview on MSNBC yesterday, Rendell denied he was trying to raise race as an issue in the primary campaign in the state and pointed out that Clinton faces a similar handicap. "There are some men who have said, 'look I have nothing against Senator Clinton but I don't want to see a woman ... in charge of the United States military as commander in chief.'"

A Guy's Gotta Make A Living: Mike Huckabee is taking a couple days off from his increasingly quixotic campaign for the Republican nomination to refresh his coffers. Not the campaign's, his own. Huckabee is traveling to the Cayman Islands to speak to a group of young professionals, a paid speaking gig he says has been on his schedule for months. "I have to make a living. I do that through my writing and my speaking," Huckabee told reporters. "There will be a few other times when I go out and make sure I can pay my mortgage payment like everybody else has to."

Huckabee also pointed out that the taxes he will pay on his speaking income in going to subsidize the rest of the candidates still in the race. "I'm the only person who doesn't get paid by the taxpayers to campaign," he said. "Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Senator McCain -- they campaign every day and I'm paying for their campaigns. … I have to pay for their senate salaries even if they are not on duty."

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