Ken Burns endorses Obama

CONCORD, N.H. — Barack Obama picked up an endorsement Tuesday from filmmaker Ken Burns, who said he was disappointed in what he called the negative tone of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.

Burns, a Walpole, N.H., resident, said the back-and-forth between Obama and Clinton shows the country needs ‘‘a leader who calls upon on each and every one of us to heed the better angels of our nature and not — and not — our basest fears.’’

‘‘At a time when our politics has descended into cynical slash-and-burn character attacks, Barack Obama has steadfastly presented a positive, unironic agenda for this country,’’ Burns said in a conference call with reporters.

The two Democrats are in a close race here and in Iowa, and Clinton’s campaign, in a separate call with reporters, criticized a recent Obama mailing.

‘‘He is criticizing Hillary Clinton for being negative and a kind of Washington politics as usual, which is a direct attack on her and her character. And in the same mailer in which he is making that attack, he is then putting forward misleading information about a policy and plan and not being straight with people,’’ said state Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Clinton supporter. ‘‘It’s not supposed to be the kind of campaign he says he’s leading.’’

Back and forth the campaigns went.

A member of Obama’s leadership team said just last weekend Clinton released a similar piece of campaign literature.

‘‘We’ve come to a sorry state in politics when you defend yourself from an attack, that’s called attack politics,’’ said Dayton Duncan, a member of Obama’s steering committee and a Burns collaborator.

Burns, who created the documentaries ‘‘The Civil War’’ and ‘‘Jazz,’’ said he has known the Clintons for 15 years. ‘‘I’ve been really disappointed by the tone that the campaigning has taken,’’ he said. ‘‘I think she’s getting some bad advice and I’m sure she’ll clean up the act.’’