Barack Obama’s campaign charged Tuesday that Geraldine Ferraro, a key supporter of Hillary Clinton, acted in a racist way when she recently suggested the Illinois Democrat achieved his place in the 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., Obama said the idea that his race has helped him in his bid is “patently absurd.”
Obama called on Clinton (D-N.Y.) to denounce Ferraro’s remarks, as he launched a campaign ahead of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, with a visit to a wind-energy 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 … say things that kind of veer off into the personal,” she said.
Later Tuesday, Ferraro tried to put her comments in context on Fox News.
“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 said she was asked a question and was not representing the Clinton campaign.
“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.”
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jdrobnyk@mcall.com
mccormickj@tribune.com
