Ferraro out over racial comment
CAMPAIGN '08 | She said Obama 'lucky' to be a black man
Geraldine Ferraro stepped down from her position on Hillary Clinton's finance committee Wednesday after Ferraro's comments on Barack Obama's race came to dominate the news for two days.
Ferraro -- the Democrats' 1984 vice-presidential nominee -- said her comments were not racist.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
The episode started with an interview Ferraro gave the Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif., in which she said "I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign -- to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued.
"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."
Was that racist?
"I'm always hesitant to throw around words like 'racist' because I don't think she intended them that way," Obama said at a Chicago news conference.
"I think her comments were ridiculous," Obama said. "I think they were wrong-headed. The notion that it is a great advantage to me to be an African American named Barack Obama to pursue the presidency, I think, is not a view that is commonly shared by the general public."
Clinton said she regretted, rejected and repudiated Ferraro's comments.
Ferraro was outraged that her comments were portrayed as racist, lashing out at Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, who has worked with her on campaigns in New York.
"I'm outraged that Axelrod . . . has chosen to spin this as a racist comment," she said.
Axelrod said he never used the word "racist."
"The fact is she said something that was divisive and wrong and I don't think there are many people who would disagree," Axelrod said.