Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics thinks he's nailed the reason for the Clinton camp's demise: they didn't hit Obama with Jeremiah Wright early enough.

Clinton's first and biggest mistake, which eventually led to her undoing, can be summed up in a single question: how and why did her campaign miss Obama's association with Reverend Wright?

Put simply, had Reverend Wright been introduced to voters a few days before the Iowa caucuses, odds are Barack Obama would not be a hair's breadth away from clinching the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Actually, Tom, had Reverend Wright been introduced to voters a few days before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary might have finished an even more distant third place there than she did.  She also might have put into jeopardy even more critical victories she claimed on Super Tuesday, like New York State. 

Why?  Let's not forget that prior to Obama's win in Iowa, Clinton was still pulling a respectable 40-60% of the African-American vote in most polls.  This was in the late-2007 "Obama's not black enough" era, rather than the mid-April 2008 period of "Obama's a black radical Muslim terrorist elitist".  The Clinton name was not then anathema to the black community in early January—in fact, the Clintons were still quite popular.

Had Hillary chosen to go after a prominent black church over its racially controversial pastor, and Obama's association with him, so early, the bottom would have dropped out of her campaign.  Not only would she have likely lost Iowa by a bigger margin, she very well could have put New York into play for Obama, as one of the bedrocks of her support in the Empire State was NYC's African-American community.  She may not be the world's best politician, but she certainly knows a booby trap when she sees it.

Bevan is usually a pretty spot-on analyst, and Real Clear Politics is one of the best political sites on the web.  That said, he is also a conservative Republican, and I think his column today says more about his own political instincts than Hillary Clinton's. 

I believe Tom is a victim of the "Wright is Kryptonite" school of GOP political theory.  They see Jeremiah go off with "God damn America", they look around the room at all their white, exurban, NASCAR loving buddies, and start drooling.  "Hillary didn't even need to campaign this election—she just needed to play this YouTube clip of this black preacher dancing around like a crazy man over and over again!  Obama is toast!  What was she thinking?"

The truth is that one of the few honorable choices the Clinton campaign made this election was to avoid Wright like the plague.  About as tough as Hillary ever got on the subject was saying "He would not have been my pastor".  The Republicans won't be so kind, and they think this is the key to victory in November.

They are in for a rude awakening.  Our country is in the midst of a recession, two endless wars, a "war on terror", a housing market collapse, an energy crisis, and much, much more.  If the GOP thinks the American people want their elected officials focused on the rants of an obscure Chicago preacher, they should go have a conversation with Republican Greg Davis of Mississippi. 

After running ads against Democrat Travis Childers that linked him not only to famed black elitist Barack Obama, but Rev. Wright himself, as well as outspending Childers 2-1, Davis lost a very solid Republican district to the Democrat by eight points Tuesday night. 

Kryptonite indeed, fellas.