Clinton Campaign Staffer Resigns over Controversial Comments
March 13, 2008
Former vice presidential nominee and member of Hillary Clinton’s campaign finance committee Geraldine Ferraro has resigned her position after facing criticism for remarks she made about Barack Obama. The trouble started when she said to a California newspaper, “if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman 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” (Reuters).
Ferraro later accused Barack Obama and his campaign of taking the comments and trying to “spin it and attack Hillary and me as being racist.” Obama responded by calling the comments “ridiculous,” but stopped short of saying that he believed they were racist: “I’m always hesitant to throw around words like racist because I don’t think she intended them that way.” However, his campaign strategist, David Axelrod, called the remarks “offensive” and called for Clinton to fire Ferraro (Washington Post).
Hillary Clinton tried to douse the flames of a potentially harmful situation, saying, “I said yesterday that I rejected what she said and I certainly do repudiate it. Obviously, she doesn’t speak for the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”
There has been growing concern in recent weeks about the tone and direction both campaigns have been taking, and neither candidate has been slow to distance him- or herself from potentially damaging situations. Obama recently accepted the resignation of a campaign staffer who had called Clinton a “monster.”
Ferraro was the first woman to hold a place on a major party’s presidential ticket, serving as Walter Mondale’s vice presidential nominee in the 1984 election. They were defeated by the incumbents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
