The New York Times-20080124-Bill Clinton Accuses Obama Camp of Stirring Race Issue
Return to: The_New_York_Times-20080124
Bill Clinton Accuses Obama Camp of Stirring Race Issue
Former President Bill Clinton defended himself Wednesday against accusations that he and his wife had injected the issue of race into the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina, and he accused Senator Barack Obama of Illinois of putting out a hit job on him.
Scolding a reporter, Mr. Clinton said the Obama campaign was feeding the news media to keep issues of race alive, obscuring positive coverage of the presidential campaign here of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
They know this is what you want to cover, Mr. Clinton told a CNN reporter in Charleston, in an apparent reference to the Obama campaign.
Shame on you, the former president added.
The sharp comments again drew extraordinary attention to Mr. Clinton as he campaigned in South Carolina in his wife's stead. Mrs. Clinton spent parts of the day in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, looking ahead to the multistate presidential nominating contests on Feb. 5.
Mr. Clinton's remarks were delivered in an even tone but heightened the tension between the Obama and Clinton camps. Mr. Clinton dredged up complaints about voting in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, where Mr. Obama won more delegates but Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote, and continued to mull publicly the role that race could play in the primaries.
That issue has permeated the campaign here in advance of the Democratic primary on Saturday, in which at least half the voters are expected to be black.
Mr. Clinton also suggested in public remarks that his wife might lose here because of race. Referring to her and Mr. Obama, he said, They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender, and that's why people tell me that Hillary doesn't have a chance to win here.
Later in the day, he said that if Mr. Obama won the Democratic nomination, he would do what I can to help him become president. Mr. Clinton said he was very impressed with the nonracial appeal of Mr. Obama.
At about the same time, the Clinton campaign began running a radio commercial about Mr. Obama, which replayed Mr. Obama's words from a recent interview with The Reno Gazette-Journal: The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.
Really? a voice-over in the Clinton commercial says. Aren't those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we're in today?
In his interview, Mr. Obama did not specify any particular idea and did not say he supported any of them, though Mrs. Clinton's commercial strongly implies that he did.
The Obama campaign called Mrs. Clinton's commercial dishonest, and Mr. Obama broadly implied at campaign appearances that the Clintons were misleading voters, though he did not mention the Clintons by name.
Mr. Obama further responded with his own radio advertisement, saying that it was Mrs. Clinton who had frequently sided with the Republicans on issues like the Iraq war and the North American Free Trade Agreement. She'll say anything, and change nothing, the commercial said. It's time to turn the page.
Mr. Obama spent the day in South Carolina, though his campaign was also preparing for Feb. 5 by expanding its television advertising into several states.
In Sumter, Mr. Obama specifically distanced himself from the Republicans. No Bush, No Cheney, No Sense, he chanted at a packed community center as the crowd repeated it so that everyone thundered together.
Mr. Obama often talks about his appeal to both independents and Republicans, and on Tuesday he said he wanted to work with Republicans, but that other politicians -- he did not mention Mrs. Clinton by name -- had distorted his statements. Part of what happens in Washington is that folks will try to twist your words around, he said.
They're trying to bamboozle you, he said to the overwhelmingly black crowd. It's the same old okey-doke.
Mr. Clinton's remarks about the media, which the Clinton campaign has said is biased against them, came in response to a question from a CNN reporter in Charleston. The reporter told him that Dick Harpootlian, a former Democratic Party chairman in South Carolina and an Obama supporter, had called the Clinton campaign in South Carolina reprehensible. CNN also told him that Mr. Harpootlian had compared their tactics to those of Lee Atwater, the Republican operative who used racial politics and wedge issues.
I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful, Mr. Clinton said. He had more pollsters than she did. When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab, I never said a word. And I don't care about it today. (The reference to the senator from Punjab was in a memo by an Obama campaign staff member.)
Mr. Clinton said no one in the audience in Charleston had asked him about how race was being used in the campaign. They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover, he said. What you care about is this. And the Obama people know that. So they just spin you up on this and you happily go along.
In response, Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, said: At the end of the day, we trust in the wisdom of the people of South Carolina, and we won't be deterred from the challenges facing their lives by the Clinton campaign's sideshows.
[Illustration]PHOTO: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a campaign stop on Wednesday in Hackensack, N.J. She also appeared in Pennsylvania, letting her husband campaign on her behalf in South Carolina. (PHOTOGRAPH BY TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES)