During a telephone interview on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton told USA Today reporter Kathy Kiely that she could still win the nomination because she had a bigger political base than Barack Obama, citing her support from "white Americans" as evidence. Here's a transcript from the interview:

KIELY: How does Hillary Clinton win the nomination?

CLINTON: There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again and how the whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me and in independents, I was running even with him and doing even better with Democratic-leaning independents. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.

Although Clinton's campaign has previously made it clear that white voters are a key focal point of her campaign, I think this is the first time she has personally linked the fate of her candidacy to "white Americans."

Partly, Clinton is making these comments to get attention. Her campaign is broke and she needs free media. She knows that the press loves to cover conflict, especially this kind of conflict. She's serving up raw meat on a platter, consequences be damned.

Moreover, it looks like Rachel Maddow was right. Clinton is going to stay in this campaign no matter how impossible her odds may be, and no matter how wrong or repellant her rationale may be. And make no mistake, in this case, her rationale is both untrue and foul.

First of all, Barack Obama has won more pledged delegates, more states, and more votes than Hillary Clinton, no matter how you count it. Under any imaginable standard, he will enter the fall campaign with a broader, larger political base than would Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's suggestion that her support from white Americans should trump Obama's larger political base is offensive on its face. It is true that she won more support from white voters in Indiana and North Carolina than did Barack Obama, but she still lost the two states combined by more than two hundred thousand votes.

Second, Barack Obama has a far more diverse political base than Clinton. In Indiana (which Obama would have won were it not for pro-McCain meddlers), over 90% of Clinton's supporters were white and just 4% were black. Meanewhile, about two-thirds of Obama's supporters were white and one-third were black. In North Carolina, 90% of Clinton's supporters were weight and just 6% were black. 41% of Obama's supporters were white and 55% were black.

Third, in recent contests Clinton has increasingly relied on McCain supporters to win votes. In Mississippi, 1 out of 4 Clinton voters were Republicans, about two-thirds of whom will probably vote for McCain. In Indiana, 1 in 8 Clinton voters said they will vote for McCain in the general even if she wins the nomination. In North Carolina, 1 in 6 Clinton voters said they will vote for McCain in the general even if she wins the nomination. Compare that to 1 in 22 and 1 in 31 for Barack Obama, respectively. Assuming that these McCain supporters are virtually all white, this trend overstates the gap between Obama and Clinton.

Fourth, a disproportionate share of Clinton's support from white voters comes from women who are basing their vote on gender more than race. It is especially confusing that Clinton would ignore this, because her strength with female voters has been one of the few big successes of her campaign.

Fifth, one of the reasons that she has been able to build an image as a (white) "working-class hero" is that despite Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama, Obama has been reluctant to make personal attacks against her. Lord knows, she's given him plenty of material: sniper fire, duck hunting, and $109 million other reasons. But because he knows he's got the nomination locked down, he's held back, not wanting to antagonize her core supporters. As a result, his numbers slump while hers grow. If the campaign were closer and he needed to return fire, we'd be seeing very different results right now.

Sixth, there's other ways to slice and dice the electorate that are just as political potent, yet far less divisive. Kos walks through several good examples, including age and education.

Finally, and most importantly, what Barack Obama has done to build his national support since the start of the campaign is just remarkable. Clinton might be able to find a trend line over the course of a few weeks that looks good for her, but any real perspective shows just how much support Barack Obama has been able to build -- and just how much she has squandered. In early 2007, sixty percent of blacks said they supported Clinton compared to twenty percent for him. He started out behind both John Edwards (who this white male supported until he dropped out) and Hillary Clinton in Iowa, which qualifies as a heavily white state. As recently as November 27, Clinton held a 41%-17% lead over Obama in national polls -- and now Obama leads her.

At one point, Clinton did have a bigger and broader political base. No longer.

So what now? Should we just ignore Clinton? After all, she hasn't a shot of winning the nomination. Maybe we can just let her words echo in an empty canyon. But once we've heard them, that's not really an option. And they are words that should offend and anger.

Not only do they represent misguided political analysis and capture why her campaign has failed, but they also represent a cynical attempt to exploit the divisions in America. Her comments reveal Clinton to be more interested in her own personal advancement than in the well-being of the country and people she hopes to govern.

Barack Obama is running a different kind of campaign. It's a campaign about us. We are the campaign. And anyone can join it, no matter how good or how bad a bowler you might be. We are the ones turning the page on Clinton-Rove politics. We are the ones saying goodbye to all that.

So I think what we do is calmly -- but forcefully -- reject Clinton's divisive rhetoric, using fact and reason instead of invective and fury. We continue pressuring superdelegates to declare their support for Obama so that the people of Oregon can end this campaign on May 20. The time has come to move on, and we are moving on. And we're putting all that behind us.