How Hillary can court the African-American vote

If not Hillary, then who? Everybody knows the Dems have no backup for the 2016 presidential election. On Nov. 4, Democratic control of the U.S. Senate went down, along with Democratic office holders across the nation.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton is riding high. With a lame-duck president and outsider status in Washington, keeping the White House is her party’s most urgent political priority.

The uber-Democratic aspirant can benefit from a crowded and messy GOP primary season featuring a contentious gaggle of white males. That prospect is sure to energize women voters.

Yet there are looming questions. She is likely to have little primary opposition, but the “inevitable” lady in waiting will still face a bare-knuckled, brutal general election in the fall. She will be pushing 70 by 2016.

Will her health and stamina hold?

Will all the pent-up desire for a woman president hold?

The big one: African-American voters are the party’s most loyal and potent voting bloc. They turned out in droves in 2008 and 2012. Will they go for Hillary in 2016?

The black vote was a hard-rock bastion for Bill Clinton, earning him the moniker “First Black President.” They backed then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential foray — until a real black man turned the tables by winning the Iowa primary.

After some racial ugliness, the Clintons and Obama made up, and Hillary Clinton went on to serve as Obama’s secretary of state.

African-American voters are wary now, and must be wooed and won anew. She’s facing a lot of groundwork to energize black voters. Here’s a start:

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