Senator Hillary Clinton said it publicly because she had to:
“Both Senator Obama and I have agreed that neither race nor gender should be a factor in this race.”
Of course they both know better.
This year, both race and gender are key factors in deciding the Democratic nomination for President.
On the surface Senator Clinton was referring to both racist and sexist turns the campaign has taken in recent days, blamed mainly on the sniping of staffers in the heat of the battle.
Some of the slights are real, some of them perceived, as each word of each email and press release is scrutinized for hidden little meanings.
And in the course of public debate there is little time to waste on whether the time is right for either a black man or a woman to lead the country.
That time is far better spent trying to understand how these people would lead the country, rooting out the content of the character as opposed to the color of the skin or sexual makeup of the candidate.
But what is said in public and what is done in the privacy of a voting booth can be two astoundingly different things.
The bottom line is this:
With the approval rating of the current president and the ongoing toll being exacted in Iraq, the White House appears to be the Democrats’ to lose.
But will this country, that has only elected white males in its entire history, be ready to break new ground?
Will voters in the Deep South and other parts of rural America embrace a highly educated person from a non-conforming background as their long sought after representative of the common man?
In their quieter moments, do the Dems wonder that in their zeal to make history, have they given the Republicans a chance to steal the show?
One would hope that in 2008, American voters are past that but the reality is that they have yet to prove it.
Look for the candidates to continue to say that neither race nor gender should play a role in the race.
But talk is cheap and dividing lines still run deep in America.
It remains to be seen if that which shouldn’t be a factor in the race still could be.