If Hillary Clinton is concerned enough about her candidacy to already be making accusation of racism against her potential Republican rivals, this is going to be a long election cycle for her and for the rest of the country.

Down in Texas for a campaign event aimed at restoring her relationship with black Democrats who rejected her 2008 candidacy, Clinton said that laws requiring voters to show identification at polls were part of “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other.” Note the language here. It’s not a misguided effort with an unfortunate result, it is a deliberate effort to prevent minorities from voting. That’s not just racist, that’s evil.

Clinton even made it personal, saying potential general election foes Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Rick Perry were “deliberately trying to stop” minority voters from participating. It’s language that might even give voter-ID opponent President Obama some pause, but Clinton tore into her topic with evident relish. In this candidacy, Clinton has seemed at times uncertain and usually vague. When it came to racially charged, partisan attacks, however, she was imbued with a new vitality and was nothing if not direct. In an ironic turn, Clinton accused Republicans of “fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic” as she intoned against urgent dangers to civil rights.

Why would a politician go so bananas over policies that are supported by something like seven out of 10 Americans? The standard media take on Clinton’s overheated rhetoric is that she is still determined to avoid her 2008 fate by pandering to, one by one, each of the parts of the Democratic coalition. It’s been rolling out at the rate of about one group and one policy reversal or expansion a week. And that is surely the biggest part of this.

But when a candidate, especially a person of pallor such as Clinton, is out making over-the-top charges of racism at this point in an election cycle it certainly does not suggest a confident candidate or campaign. While Republicans might take heart that the woman who remains ahead in hypothetical matchups against anyone in their field is throwing haymakers 17 months before Election Day, they also ought to remember what else this gambit says about Clinton: She will do whatever it takes to win.

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