Ferraro Defends Remarks About Obama as ‘Statement of Fact’ After She Leaves Clinton Team
Former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who is stepping down from Hillary Clinton’s finance team after telling a California newspaper that Barack Obama has been aided politically by his race, said Wednesday evening that the remarks were nothing more than a “statement of fact.”
Ferraro told FOX News she’s leaving her unpaid post on the Clinton finance committee because she doesn’t want the flap to become a campaign distraction, but blamed the fallout on Obama’s operatives.
“Somebody must have seen this (article) and said, ‘Wow, this is really something — we go after Ferraro, we go after Clinton,” Ferraro said in an interview Wednesday night on FOX News’ “Hannity & Colmes. “They made this a divisive issue, not me.”
Ferraro, who also is a FOX News contributor, she said she was simply exercising her First Amendment rights: “It was a statement of fact — nothing more, nothing less.”
Word of Ferraro’s departure spread Wednesday afternoon following calls from Obama’s team to restore civility by not letting the debate devolve into race-based arguments.
Speaking to reporters in Chicago, Obama said he didn’t think the comments were racist, but he did call them “ridiculous” and “wrong-headed.”
“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,”Obama said.
Ferraro notified Clinton by letter that she would no longer serve on Clinton’s finance committee as “Honorary New York Leadership Council Chair.” She wrote that the Obama campaign “is attacking me to hurt you.”
Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson said Ferraro made the decision on her own to leave the campaign post.
And Clinton reiterated Wednesday evening during a forum in Washington, D.C., with the Black Press of America that Ferraro was not speaking for her.
“I said yesterday that I rejected what she said, and I certainly do repudiate it, and I regret deeply that it was said,” Clinton said. “Obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign, or any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”
A sign that she acknowledges some race-based comments have soured voters, Clinton also apologized at the Washington forum for comments made by Bill Clinton after Obama won the South Carolina primary. The former president said Jesse Jackson also won South Carolina when he ran for president in 1984 and 1988, a comment many viewed as belittling Obama’s success.
“I want to put that in context. You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive,” Hillary Clinton said. “We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama.”
Clinton said she wants the campaign to stick to the issues, but added “we don’t control what is said by everyone who supports us.”
She brought up the resignation last week of Obama’s foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, who left the campaign after calling Clinton a “monster” in an interview with a Scottish newspaper.
The latest controversy began when the national media picked up on comments Ferraro made in an interview last week with the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, Calif.: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. 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.”
She accused the media of being “sexist” toward Clinton.
Ferraro was unrepentant about her comments. She said she has a 40-year history of opposing all kinds of discrimination and that she was speaking from a historical context, noting that she would not have been chosen as Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984 if she had been a man.
“I’m sorry, I said nothing negative,” she told FOX News earlier Wednesday. “I care about the black vote in this country. I really don’t think this is right that they should attack me as racist.”
Former Maryland Lieutenant Gov. Michael Steele, who is black, said that Ferraro’s comments are true, and the fact she can’t speak them “goes to the heart and ugliness of racism.” He said Obama’s candidacy is not diminished by her words, but an oversensitivity is harming debate in America.
“It just speaks to the fact that race, no matter how you slice and dice it,” is all too present in people’s minds, he said.
FOX News’ Aaron Bruns and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
obama he him self has made this about race, he had made the statements during his speaches, about change, and how it is (our time). whos time is he talking about, men no why because there has only been a man for president, woman no he is not a woman, white no he is not white, is he talking about us the people no, that would not be change all the canidates say its about the american people as long as i can remember, the only other option is he is talking about the fact of him being african american. the facts are stated every day how he has is the majority black votes.
At least SOMEONE tells it like it is! No apologies needed!
Ferraro ‘08
Let’s pretend that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are both middle aged white men. And let’s say that their words regarding the issues, over the whole campaign, stay exactly as they were stated. In my opinion, based on the voting we have witnessed, is that Ms. Ferraro’s statements are true. On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton has also benefited from being a woman candidate. There has been an inarguable increase in the number of black voters that overwhelmingly benefits Mr. Obama. The women voters that support Mrs. Clinton for the most part were voters in the past. Being a woman has no doubt swayed a lot of those voters choice, but not to the degree that Mr. Obama has enjoyed. If the two candidates were middle aged white men, and everyone that has voted so far had to choose based on issues, records, experience and personality, my feeling is that Mrs. Clinton would be ahead considerably. For the record, I would rather have seen Joe Biden win the nomination.
“How can we ever address issues if we can’t talk about them?” This was a comment on NPR from a wife working on Hillary’s campaign whose husband was working for Obama.
During his presidency, I remember watching live Bill Clinton’s denouncement of the book The Bell Curve in which he said that it represented ideas and drew conclusions that were against everything America stood for. Looking at his carefully worded statement I noticed that he never actually said any of the data or the conclusions were incorrect, yet he effectively killed debate by labeling the book and anyone espousing it’s conclusions as a racist. Anyone who thinks the research was racist and unscholarly has not read or understood it. If we cannot discuss real and measurable differences in the performance between different groups, be they racial, cultural, religious, or other category, how can we ever hope to find all of the underling causes of these differences and thus be able to address them? I don’t want to come to the defense of either Ferraro or Hillary, or even Obama as I will be voting Republican, however they should be able to discuss the tangible effects of race and culture in an objective manner without being labeled racist. Without this freedom, we will never find the best path for change or achieve true equality.
i feel that ferraro was only stating that this election is about race and gender, the polls prove it, obama has been getting the black vote all along and young voters , whom are mostly college students.thay see the word CHANGE, and thats all it takes.oabama couldnt move fast enough on her statements. obama wrote in his book how you must vote yes or no on what ever bill comes up.he voted present on a bill in 1999,firing a gun on or near schools grounds the juveniles would be prosicuted as an adult,he is undermining his image of being tough on crimes.he also voted present on a bill that would stop sex shops and strip clubs from being with in a a thousand feet of our schools, what is he thinking.we need some one tough , he should take a real stand and stop worring about losing votes.i ahave not fallen under the obama spell and never will, i did research and i didnt like what i saw, nothing to do with race or gender, what is important to me are the issues, and how senaters vote or have voted in the past is important,when it comes right down to it actions speak louder than words.
Words from a self-proclaimed man of God in front of his congregation…”Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.” Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. It has more effect when you see the hip gyrations. And then there is Bill Burton, “Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Senator Obama deeply disagrees.” If Mr. Obama has this available to him…don’t we all?
Ferraro is wrong. Wrong to be a race-card surrogate for the Clinton machine and wrong in her comparison about her being on the Vice President ticket because she was a women and Obama leading in the Democratic nomination race for President because he is black. She was “picked” to be on the Democratic ticket as Vice President. Obama has went out and “earned” every vote and every delegate to be the leader in the nomination for President of the United States on the Democratic ticket.
It is also true that Hillary would not be where she is unless she were married to Bill. George W. Bush would not be where he is had his dad not been president. Same could be said for Kennedy, Bayh, many others.
The fact is that ancestry plays a part in politics.
So what?
Obama’s Iraq Plan: Just Words
To: Interested Parties
Once again, it looks like Senator Obama is telling voters one thing while his campaign says those words should not to be mistaken for serious action.
After months of speeches from Senator Obama promising a hard end date to the Iraq war, his top foreign policy adviser that counseled his campaign during that period is on the record saying that Senator Obama will “not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator.”
Voters already have serious questions about whether Senator Obama is ready to be Commander-in-Chief. Now there are questions about whether he’s serious about the Iraq plan he’s discussed for the last year on the campaign trail.
Senator Obama has made hard end dates about Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign and has repeatedly attacked Senator Clinton for not being clear about her intentions with regard to troop withdrawal.
It turns out those attacks and speeches were just words. And if you can’t trust Senator Obama’s words, what’s left?
This latest incident is part of a larger pattern where Senator Obama doesn’t deliver on the promises he makes on the campaign trail — whether it’s his 2004 Senate race or his 2008 White House campaign.
In 2003, Senator Obama said he was for a single payer health system, but now opposes plans that cover every American. He promised to repeal the Patriot Act, but then voted to extend it. He promised to normalize relations with Cuba, but flip-flopped when he started running for president.
In 2008, Senator Obama rails against NAFTA in Ohio while his top economic advisor assures the Canadians his rhetoric is just “political positioning.” He promises to opt in to public financing if the GOP nominee does, but then breaks that pledge in real time. He promises to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months, and now his top foreign policy adviser says that he’s not relying on the plan.
With a short record to run on, Senator Obama’s entire campaign is based on the speeches he makes on the campaign trail. So when he and his advisers dismiss the plans he touts on the stump, it undermines his entire candidacy.
Americans have heard plenty of speeches. It’s time they got serious solutions and that’s what Hillary is going to deliver when she is President.
Ferraro is 100% dead right in her comments and all of you all know it…..it is just ridiculous how everyone has to apologize to Obama because of his race. If he is that sensitive, he needs to bow out now…..George Bush has been called every name imaginable and it has been applauded by the liberal press and newspapers…..where is the outcry for a republican candidate. NOW THAT IS RACISM……….