Last modified: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 12:18 AM EDT HAND: Hillary and the Holy Grail There is a scene in the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in which King Arthur encounters the Black Knight blocking his quest. A sword fight ensues, during which Arthur cuts off each of the knight's limbs one-by-one, only to have the knight insist each is "only a flesh wound" and continue fighting. "It's but a scratch. Have at you," the knight cries after each near-fatal wound. Finally, when the knight is reduced to a mere stump, he says, "We'll call it a draw." The movie was released in 1975, but its seems to be the script for Hillary Clinton's 2008 Democratic presidential campaign. No matter how many primaries Clinton loses, no matter how far back she falls in the delegate race, no matter how many pundits declare her beat, she keeps fighting. But, while "Holy Grail" was a comedy, there is nothing funny about the Clinton campaign. Clinton's tenacity is, at times, admirable but also unsettling. She seems willing to pay any price and utilize any tactic to continue on with the hope that Barack Obama will eventually fail and the Democratic Party will turn to her to be its nominee. Clinton is willing to destroy Obama's reputation, her party's chances of winning in November and her husband's legacy as a president who cared about African-Americans in her quest for the Holy Grail. Lately, she has been pushing the lines of decency with her utilization of race in her campaign. Until recently, she let her husband and surrogates like Geraldine Ferraro raise the race issue, but now she is doing it herself as her campaign grows more desperate. Clinton wants the world to know that white voters support her and therefore only she can win the election. In her wording, she seemingly equates whites with "hard working Americans." As one network news commentator said this week, she makes it sound like only black welfare mothers are supporting Obama. The online magazine Salon.com Friday compared her to George Wallace, the late segregationist governor of Alabama. Her strategy is to so divide the country along racial lines so that superdelegates to the Democratic convention will be scared into voting against Obama. Clinton brags that she gets 60 percent of the white vote and dismisses the 90 percent of back voters who back Barack as apparently unimportant. He gets more white votes than she does black votes. She also makes the strange case that her coalition of voters is stronger than his. If that were true, she would be winning the race. There is another difference between the Black Knight and Clinton. The knight only lost his arms and legs. Clinton has lost her dignity. Politics onlinePolitical junkies can discuss the presidential race, the latest developments at the Statehouse, local elections and all the political issues of the day by logging onto The Sun Chronicle political blog at tinyurl.com/64u54n. JIM HAND covers politics for The Sun Chronicle. His commentaries appear in this space on Saturdays. Contact him at 508-236-0399 or at jhand@thesunchronicle.com.