Clinton Distances Herself From Ferraro’s Remarks

FAIRLESS HILLS, Pa. _ Barack Obama’s campaign charged Tuesday that Geraldine Ferraro, a key supporter of Hillary Clinton, acted in a racist way when she recently suggested Obama achieved his place in the Democratic presidential race because he is black.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1984 told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., in an interview published Friday. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

In an interview with The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., the Illinois Democrat said the idea that his race has helped him in his presidential bid is “patently absurd.”

Obama called on Clinton to denounce Ferraro’s remarks, as he launched a six-week campaign ahead of the next contest, the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, with a visit to a wind energy manufacturing plant.

“Anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd,” he said. “I would expect that the same way those comments don’t have a place in my campaign, they shouldn’t have a place in Sen. Clinton’s.”

Clinton told The Associated Press that she disagrees with Ferraro’s comments.

“It’s regrettable that any of our supporters on both sides _ because we both have this experience _ say things that kind of veer off into the personal,” the New York senator said.

Later Tuesday, Ferarro, speaking on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Election HQ” tried to put her comments in context.

“First of all left me say I’m sorry people thought it was racist,” said the former congresswoman from New York. “I’m a person really who has fought discrimination for 40 years, so I am absolutely offended by the e-mails, the phone calls and all the threats I have been getting.”

Ferraro, a Clinton fundraiser, said she was asked a question while giving a paid speech and was not representing the Clinton campaign.

“I got up and the question was asked, `Why do you think Barack Obama is in the place he is today?’ with all these candidates, with all these delegates and stuff. And I said in large part because he is black.”

___

(Drobnyk reports for The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., and McCormick for the Chicago Tribune.)

___

(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune.

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.