Sen. Barack Obama’s (Ill.) campaign said Tuesday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) should cut all ties with supporter and ex-Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-N.Y.) after the former vice presidential candidate made remarks about how Obama’s race helps him in the Democratic primary.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, said on a conference call with reporters that, if Clinton does not condemn Ferraro’s comments, the New York senator is essentially condoning and encouraging “offensive” attacks.
{mosads}“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Ferraro said in a newspaper interview. “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 serves on the Clinton campaign’s finance committee, and so far the campaign has said only that it disagrees with Ferraro’s assessment.
Axelrod said Ferraro’s comments and Clinton’s reluctance to condemn them are part of an “insidious pattern that needs to be addressed.”
“When you wink and nod at offensive statements you're really sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes," Axelrod said.
Recently, the Obama campaign accepted the resignation of senior adviser Samantha Power after she called Clinton "a monster" in an interview.
Axelrod said the difference between the two incidents is how the Obama camp dealt with such a statement from one of its own advisers.
"We’ve been very firm in dealing with that," Axelrod said.