Washington - Race and gender are never far from the surface of the historic scramble for the Democratic US presidential nomination, and never more so than on Tuesday, when a chief fund raiser for Hillary Clinton said her rival had an advantage because he was black. Barack Obama, 46, dismissed the comments as "patently absurd" and "divisive," according to an interview he gave to the Allentown, Pennsylvania, daily newspaper, The Morning Call.
The incendiary remarks came from Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate and a chief fundraiser and advisor to Senator Clinton, 60.
Ferraro told the Daily Breeze newspaper of Torrance, California, that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position" of leading in the tight race.
"And if he was a woman of any colour, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
Obama's campaign has demanded that Clinton sever ties with Ferraro, who is a major muscle in the Democratic Party.
Clinton said she did not "agree" with Ferraro's comments in a statement on her official campaign website.
"It's regrettable that any of our supporters on both sides say things that veer off into the personal," Clinton said. "We ought to keep this focused on the issues."
Obama told the Morning Call that Ferraro's comments had no "place in our politics or the Democratic Party."
"I think they were divisive," he said. "I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd."
Roland Martin, a CNN commentator, compared Ferraro's remarks to the heyday of racial hiring quotas, when skilled black professionals and trade workers had their accomplishments diminished by remarks that "you got the job because you are black."
Obama, who leads Clinton in the number of delegates for the nomination, has been projected to win Tuesday's Democratic primary vote in the southern state of Mississippi because of the state's heavily black population, but he has also captured nearly all-white states such as Iowa and has shown strong appeal for crucial independent voters.
Either Clinton or Obama would mark a historic US marker as the country's first female or black presidential nominee.
