The battles of the post-JFK mid-1960s were largely fought between the far left and the not-as-far-left: Democrats controlled all three branches of government, but the new left hated LBJ, hated the older generation of New Deal-minted liberals, and hated South Vietnam. The result was a--literally--bloody election year in 1968, and when Richard Nixon returned to the national spotlight as the candidate of law and order, he narrowly won over Johnson surrogate Hubert Humphrey.

In a much quieter fashion than forty years ago, we're seeing some of the same internecine struggles play out in this extended primary season between the far left Obama supporters, and the supporters of Hillary Clinton, who is cast in the role of the populist centralist. (If she actually won the nomination, and won in Novemer, she'd effectively govern much as Obama plans to, of course, because it takes a nanny state to control the village, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Jim Geraghty, who in a previous post spots Joe Conason of Salon comparing Hillary to fellow Democrat George Wallace (just add it to this list), writes:

A note to add to this post: Saturday Night Live this weekend featured a faux-Hillary bragging to the superdelegates that the party had to nominate her over Obama, because "my supporters are racist."

It's become strikingly acceptable to declare Hillary's voters racist lately, isn't it?

Indeed it has. And it's arguably a form of projection in a way, after Rev. Wright's dramatic 15 minutes back in the spotlight a couple of weeks ago. As the Anchoress writes though:

Are Clintons racist? Nah, I don’t believe so. But conscious of, and fixated on race? Yes, that I’ll buy.

Absolutely. But next time the race card gets played against a Republican (and it already has, by Newsweek, not entirely surprisingly), we should remember that like Michael Corleone ordering up another hit, it's just business, nothing personal. And if enough people understand that, that might actually be a surprisingly positive outcome of '68, err, 2008.

Update: Charles Johnson writes that "According to the Washington Post, Indiana is full of racists and bigots": all Hillary supporters according to the Post, but as Charles notes, one of the examples that the paper uses to support their claim is this:

The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: “Hamas votes BHO” and “We don’t cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright.”

As Charles adds:

Vandalism stinks, and whoever did this is a complete moron and a criminal. But the incident shows someone who’s upset by the racism of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. There are no racist words or slurs used. Why would the Washington Post call this “bigotry,” when there’s no evidence of it?

Because attacking bigotry is bigoted--or something like that. When we wake up in 2015 after our national coma, it will all make sense, I guess.