You can live by identity politics and attract blocs of voters who are basically competing for various political spoils. They may and often will disagree on specific platform, proposals and first principles, but if you can keep them happy and keep them from competing over the same slices of the pie that you intend to carve up, you can build some power. That has more or less been the way the Democrat party has operated for decades now.

As Hillary Clinton is learning, you can also die by identity politics. She’s facing some blowback from a Latino super delegate for firing “Latina Queena” Patti Solis Doyle and replacing her with longtime HRC loyalist Maggie Williams.

The e-mail from, Steven Ybarra, a California superdelegate who heads the voting-rights committee of the DNC Hispanic Caucus, was sent to fellow caucus members in the hours after word broke that Solis Doyle – the most prominent Latina in Clinton’s campaign – would be replaced by another close Clinton loyalist, Maggie Williams, who is black.

The e-mail noted that Clinton, who is looking to Latino voters for a boost in the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4, scored heavily with Hispanics in her California win.

“Apparently, loyalty is not a two-way street,” he wrote. “Latino superdelegates like myself . . . will have cause to pause.”

Ybarra told The Post yesterday that the loss of Solis Doyle, a child of Mexican immigrants, just weeks before the Texas primary, where 36 percent of the population is Hispanic, was “dumb as a stump.”

It would be nice if Ybarra and for that matter Hillary herself could learn to look past identity politics and make their decisions based on character and competence. Clinton isn’t running her campaign that way, though, choosing instead to run it based on personal loyalty and gender preferences. That’s a glimpse of the kind of administration she would have in the unlikely event that she can overtake Obama to win the nomination. I doubt Obama will be any more free of identity-based attacks like Ybarra’s than Hillary would.