The Hillary Clinton campaign had to quickly scrub their Action Center of either a bad joke or a dirty trick this afternoon. The Rocky Mountain News noticed a strange invitation to a NAFTA rally next Monday, which suggested that Bill Clinton might appear at the Downtown Ritz-Carlton in blackface. No, really:

Inquiries from the Rocky Mountain News prompted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign to remove a purported supporter’s “Bill in blackface?” event announcement from Clinton’s official campaign Web site.

The notice appeared in an “action center” section of www.hillaryclinton.com where average supporters are allowed to publicize local events that are not necessarily sanctioned by the campaign.

In this case, the notice promised “Laughter at NAFTA Rally!” on Monday in downtown Cleveland.

The description:

“We’ve hired some high-end comedic talent to ease the way into Primary Day! Want to see HRC in cat-scratch mode? Bill in blackface? How about Mark Penn doling out pizza crusts and doughnut holes to the volunteers? We’ve got it all!”

And what’s more, the RMN managed to cache the invitation before Team Hillary had a chance to, er, whitewash its site.

Now, the campaign itself doesn’t actually post these notices on the site. It relies on its community to promote events, such as this fundraiser. Bill Clinton had no intention of showing up in blackface. The event’s sponsor, “Dinah Feind”, doesn’t show up in any donor searches at Open Secrets. In short, someone wanted to make the Hillary Clinton campaign look … well, racist.

Who would want to do that? Republicans don’t have much motivation, because she appears on her way out already. The Mark Pen-pizza crust reference sounds like a disgruntled former supporter or campaign worker. It makes for a better mystery than the Democratic primary race at the moment …