 Geraldine Ferraro (Torrance Daily Breeze) |
Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro’s assertion that Sen. Barack Obama is poised to become her party’s nominee because he is black drew criticism today from the Illinois senator’s campaign.
Susan Rice, a senior Obama adviser, called the comments “outrageous and offensive,” the New York Times reported.
Ferraro, a member of Hillary Clinton’ campaign finance committee, said last week, according to a Southern California newspaper, the country and its “sexist media” have “gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.”
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she said at a post-speech Q&A session, according the Torrance Daily Breeze. “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.”
Ferraro, 72, is familiar with identity politics, making history in 1984 when she was chosen by Walter Mondale as the first woman on a major party presidential ticket.
Rice called on the Clinton campaign to repudiate Ferraro’s remarks.
“It is the sort of comment that we have heard repeatedly, I’m afraid, from some of the Clinton surrogates,” Rice said today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “It is a far worse comment that what Samantha Power said and for which Senator Obama accepted her resignation.”
Rice said if Clinton “is serious about putting an end to statements that have racial implications, that diminish Senator Obama because he’s an African American man, then she ought to really repudiate this comment and make it clear that there is no place in her campaign for people who will say this kind of thing.”
A Clinton campaign spokesman lightly disavowed Ferraro’s remarks, the New York Times reported, saying only, “We disagree with her.”
In the Q&A session last week, Ferraro 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.
“For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.”
Ferraro also said she doesn’t buy into Obama’s campaign theme about being a great reconciler.
“I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he’s going to be able to put an end to partisanship,” Ferraro told the California paper, clearly annoyed. “Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship – that’s the way our country is.”
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