Hacked emails see Clinton campaign decide to keep quiet about race issues unless 'we're slipping fast'

Hacked emails published Saturday by WikiLeaks show Hillary Clinton's campaign weighing the pros and cons of having its candidate give a major speech on race issues in America, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

In a conversation in February of this year, Clinton's chief speechwriter, Dan Schwerin, emailed other staff to suggest that such a speech could show Clinton's "sustained and comprehensive commitment" to minorities. However, he wrote, the speech could also "unintentionally end up elevating questions that aren't yet being widely asked and introduce new damaging information, especially [Clinton's use of the term] super predator, to a lot more voters."

Schwerin concluded that "if we're slipping fast [in the race against Sen. Bernie Sanders], maybe it's worth rolling the dice and doing the speech. If we're holding relatively steady, maybe we see if we can ride this out without doing the speech."

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Clinton did end up giving a speech on race issues in Harlem on Feb. 16. At the time, Sanders was rising rapidly in the polls, from an average of 35 percent support the day before the speech to 42 percent three days later.