John Podhoretz has a different take than me on Hillary's "plantation" dust-up in today's New York Post. Podhoretz writes:

Hillary Clinton is playing a long game — a game for 2008 — and when viewed in that context, what she did and said was very canny.

Saying that the Republican-run House of Representatives is "run like a plantation" won't do her any damage with any Democratic political constituency. The emotion that unites Democrats more than any other is visceral loathing of Republicans — the president especially, but with House Republicans certainly gaining on him……

By adopting the cheap but resonant rhetoric of African-American politicians, Hillary Clinton may have offended the sensibilities of professional political watchers, who prefer to referee a clean game. But she wasn't speaking to them. Hillary was trying to send a message to a key Democratic constituency that she speaks their language and shares their view that the Republican political leadership is motivated by racism.

She played the race card on Monday because she was being grilled about her votes in favor of the Iraq war and subsequent defense appropriations. It was her way of making clear to her audience that, despite her hawkish votes, she was really one of them in spirit and in her heart of hearts…

The "plantation" remark is of no enduring significance except that it will leave an impression — not among most Americans, but among African-American primary voters and delegates. And that will only help Hillary. We should all make such mistakes.

I don’t disagree with Podhoretz that the “plantation” line will help her among black voters, but I question whether that was ever a real vulnerability for her. They don’t call former President Bill Clinton the first African-American president for nothing, and I suspect Bill is in a position to deliver the African-American primary vote to Hillary, lock, stock and barrel.

The point I make in my column today is whether her comment will affect the view of her electability after the primaries. And to the degree that it makes the Democratic powers that be and voters question whether she can win in the general election, the remark could work to hurt her chances.

Much of the conventional wisdom in Washington is that Hillary’s challenge in the primaries will come from the left, and while I have no doubt that a virulently anti-war Democrat will emerge, ala Howard Dean in 2004, I think her real vulnerability is someone like Mark Warner and the Democratic establishment coalescing around the idea that they’d actually like to win in 2008 and move beyond the Clintons.