Ferraro leaves Clinton camp over remarks on Obama

Comments shine spotlight on race and gender

Geraldine Ferraro stepped down from Hillary Clinton's national finance committee yesterday, but not before a controversy over remarks she made about Barack Obama exposed the politics of race and gender in the Democratic presidential race.

Ferraro told CNN that she was not asked by the Clinton campaign to make the move, but decided it would be best.

In a letter obtained by CNN, Ferraro wrote Clinton: "I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign. The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen."

Earlier yesterday, the 1984 vice presidential nominee apologized to those who thought it racially insensitive for her to suggest that Obama wouldn't be the Democratic front-runner if he were not black. But she then declared: "It wasn't a racist comment. It was a statement of fact."

On ABC's "Good Morning America," she also accused the Obama campaign of twisting her words, saying that "every time" someone makes a negative comment about Obama they are accused of racism.

Tuesday night, Ferraro had even stronger words about Obama's camp for the Daily Breeze, the newspaper in Torrance, Calif., whose interview with her last week started the controversy. "Racism works in two different directions," she said. "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

The Obama campaign had called on Clinton, who had distanced herself from Ferraro's comments and called them "regrettable," to remove Ferraro from her finance committee.

Before Ferraro's resignation, Obama admonished her yesterday, saying that if someone in his campaign had suggested that Clinton "is where she is only because she is a woman," people would "take great offense, and rightly so."

"Part of what I think Geraldine Ferraro is doing, and I respect the fact that she was a trailblazer, is to participate in the kind of slice-and-dice politics that's about race and about gender. . . That's what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can't solve problems," Obama said on NBC's "Today" show.

At an afternoon news conference in Chicago, Obama, who would become the first black president if elected, said he did not believe that the Clinton campaign was deliberately stirring racial divisions or that Ferraro's comments were racist.

"I think that her comments were ridiculous. I think they were wrongheaded," he said. "The notion that it is a great advantage to me to be an African-American named Barack Obama and pursue the presidency, I think, is not a view that has been commonly shared by the general public."

The Illinois senator also expressed frustration that racial issues keep arising, asserting that his primary victories across the country have proven he can draw support from all races and regions. "We keep on thinking we've dispelled this," he said. "And it keeps on getting raised once again."

Obama said he believes that the vast majority of voters will base their decisions on substantive issues. "I have absolute confidence that if I'm doing my job, if I'm delivering my message, then there are very few voters out there that I can't win," he said. "If I'm not winning them over, then it's my fault."

The controversy comes as the Democratic electorate appears more racially polarized. Obama won the support of more than 90 percent of black voters in Mississippi on Tuesday, while Clinton won about three-fourths of white voters, according to exit polls.

Before Ferraro's resignation, the Clinton campaign stoked the fight a little more, buttressing Ferraro's comments that Clinton has been treated unfairly as a female candidate by highlighting remarks by an Obama adviser last month.

Retired Air Force General Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak told the Los Angeles Times that Obama has "real gravitas" and "doesn't go on television and have crying fits," an apparent reference to Clinton's much-publicized emotional moment on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.

The Obama campaign had immediately repudiated the comments, and McPeak quickly said he had "high regard" for Clinton. But the Clinton camp pointed out that he is front and center in vouching for Obama's national security credentials, including a news conference yesterday.

McPeak said Obama had the right judgment and steady temperament to be commander in chief, praising him for opposing a "dumb war" in Iraq and calling him "No-shock Barack" and "No-drama Obama."