Barack Obama said today that claims he was ahead of Hillary Clinton in the US Democratic presidential race because he was black were "ridiculous" and "wrong-headed" but not intended to be racist.
Mr Obama, who would be the first black US president, was responding to comments by former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter, who told a California newspaper he was leading in the contest to be the Democratic presidential candidate because he was black.
Ms Ferraro stepped down tonight from her role as a member of the Clinton campaign's finance committee.
"I think that her comments were ridiculous. I think they were wrong-headed," Mr Obama told a news conference in Chicago, where his candidacy was endorsed by a group of high-ranking retired military officers.
Clinton campaign adviser Geraldine Ferraro
"I think they are not born out by our history or the facts. The notion that it is of 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," he said.
Mr Obama, who has built up a strong lead in the state-by-state contests for the Democratic nomination to face Republican John McCain in November, denied Ms Ferraro's charge that his campaign repeatedly responded to criticism by saying it was racially motivated, and he said he did not believe her remarks were racist.
"I'm always hesitant to throw around words like racist because I don't think she intended them that way," he said.
Ms Ferraro, the only woman to run on a major US party's presidential ticket, ignited the flap when she told a California newspaper that "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," she said.
Ms Ferraro, a Democrat who ran for vice president in 1984, had defended hercomments earlier today in a round of appearances on television news morning shows and rejected what she called attempts by Mr Obama's campaign to paint her remark as racist.
She told CBS television she thought Mr Obama had been able to mount a strong campaign against Mrs Clinton because his was a "historic candidacy" that excited the country, as her candidacy did in 1984.
"For his campaign to take that and spin it and attack Hillary and me as being racist, I tell you, it is just appalling," said Ms Ferraro, who is on Mrs Clinton's finance committee.
"My comments have been taken so out of context and have been spun by the Obama campaign as racist that it's doing precisely what they don't want done - it's going to the Democratic Party and dividing us even more," Ms Ferraro said in another interview on ABC.
Mrs Clinton, a senator from New York and wife of former President Bill Clinton who would be the first woman to become US president, rejected Ms Ferraro's remarks yesterday but her campaign did not immediately break its ties with her.
Mr Obama's campaign has fired an adviser who called Mrs Clinton a "monster".
Mr Obama won a Mississippi nominating contest yesterday with heavy support from black voters and extended his lead over Mrs Clinton in pledged delegates to the August convention, which will nominate the party's candidate for the November election.
The Illinois senator also won on Saturday in Wyoming. Both contenders are now concentrating their campaigns on Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22nd.