NY Times: RENO, Nev. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday accused Senator Barack Obama’s campaign of distorting her remarks to suggest that she had cast aspersions on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
She said she was “personally offended” by the way her statement had been portrayed, and accused Mr. Obama’s campaign of being divisive.
Mrs. Clinton made her comments to reporters here after she was asked if she had spoken to Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who is the highest-ranking African-American in Congress. Mr. Clyburn had expressed disappointment in the Clinton campaign.
Mrs. Clinton said she had spoken with him. She suggested that she had told him her comments were distorted.
“I was personally offended at the approach taken that was not only misleading but unnecessarily hurtful,” said Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York. “And I have made that clear to many people in the last several days.”
Asked to whom she was referring, Mrs. Clinton responded, “I think it clearly came from Senator Obama’s campaign, and I don’t think it was the kind of debate we should be having in this campaign.”
A spokesman for the Obama campaign, Bill Burton, did not back away from its original criticism of Mrs. Clinton.
“People were offended at her words, and she can explain them however she’d like,” Mr. Burton said. “However, I think that Congressman Clyburn and other leaders across the country would take great offense at the suggestion that their response was somehow engineered by this campaign.”
Prominent black supporters of Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, have been criticizing Mrs. Clinton over her remarks last week that some have interpreted as giving President Lyndon B. Johnson more credit than Dr. King for civil rights law.
Mrs. Clinton quickly clarified her comments with effusive praise for Dr. King, but the criticism has worried her advisers because of the potential impact it might have in the Democratic presidential primary on Jan. 26 in South Carolina, where up to half of the electorate could be black.
Mr. Clyburn said he was disappointed by what Mrs. Clinton had said and by former President Bill Clinton’s use of the phrase “fairy tale” in talking about Mr. Obama’s views on the war in Iraq.
Comments by Mr. Clyburn have raised concerns in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign that he might abandon a pledge of neutrality and endorse Mr. Obama later this month. Mrs. Clinton said Saturday that he had told her he would remain neutral.
This was what Mrs. Clinton said on Monday: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” At a later stop, she said that her remark had not captured what she had sought to portray.
Mrs. Clinton seemed prepared to address the question Saturday the second she stepped in front of reporters, and she went into the attack as soon as she was asked about Mr. Clyburn.
The back and forth in recent days has pushed race to the front of the Democratic nomination contest in the way it has not been.
Asked what role she thought race would play in her contest with Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton responded, “I hope none.”
“I don’t think either Senator Obama or myself want to see the injection of race or gender into this campaign,” she continued. “We are each running as individuals. I think it’s absolutely extraordinary that the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for president are an African-American and a woman.”
Mrs. Clinton spoke on the weekend when several of her advisers and donors said that the campaign had abandoned what was one of the fundamental assumptions of its strategy — that the nomination would be effectively decided on Feb. 5, when 22 states hold nominating contests. Her campaign has started to create an organizational hierarchy for its donors to accelerate fund-raising to pay for increasingly expensive advertising, travel and voter-outreach efforts, with a goal of raising more than $10 million by the end of January, according to several of the donors.
That target is important because several Clinton advisers and donors now believe that the Democratic presidential fight between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama may not end on the mega-primary day of Feb. 5, as Mrs. Clinton and others had initially expected.
Advisers and donors said Saturday that they wanted to have enough resources — building on the $20 million or so that they currently have on hand — to advertise heavily in the expensive media markets of California, New Jersey and New York, which vote on Feb. 5, and still have money to compete strongly in the primaries later that month.
The new Clinton donor hierarchy involves the appointment of national finance leaders — major donors who will take a key role coordinating fund-raising goals across the country and ensuring that financial pledges are delivered on time.
Among the new national finance leaders are four New Yorkers and long-time Clinton supporters: Maureen White, a former fund-raising leader at the Democratic National Committee; her husband, Steve Rattner, an investment banker; Hassan Nemazee, a veteran Democratic fundraiser; and Alan Patricof, a venture capitalist. Several more leaders are expected.
The new hierarchy was discussed at concurrent meetings Friday night that Mrs. Clinton held with several dozen donors in Los Angeles and that Mr. Clinton held with a similar group in Washington. Mr. Clinton was joined by the campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, and the campaign finance director, Jonathan Mantz.
According to three donors who were at the Washington meeting, Mr. Clinton and Mr. McAuliffe said that the campaign was now national in scope, with political and advertising efforts either under way or about to begin from coast to coast. Mr. Obama has similar efforts under way as well.
Donors were told that Mrs. Clinton would fight hard to win the Nevada caucuses next Saturday, despite some powerful union endorsements for Mr. Obama, and would also compete in the South Carolina primary, in spite of Mr. Obama’s strong support among black voters in that state.
Barack Obama
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