The Clinton campaign moved on Friday to try to quell a potentially damaging reaction to recent comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that have drawn criticism from African-Americans just as the presidential primary campaign reached southern states with significant numbers of black voters.
In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton's nationally syndicated talk radio show, former president Clinton said that his "fairy tale" comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama's position on the war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Obama's overarching message or his drive to be the first black president.
"There's nothing fairy tale about his campaign," Bill Clinton said. "It's real, strong and he might win."
Bill Clinton's fairy tale line and a comment by Hillary Clinton that was interpreted by some as giving former US president Lyndon Johnson more credit than Martin Luther King Jr. for winning changes in civil rights laws have disturbed African-Americans, who saw the comments as unfair, diminishing the role of civil rights activists. The frustration comes as a Jan. 26 Democratic primary looms in South Carolina, where half of the Democratic electorate could be black.
The highest-ranking African-American in Congress, Representative James Clyburn, said this week that he was disappointed in the comments, a worrisome matter for the Clintons since an endorsement of Obama by the lawmaker could carry weight in the primary.
On Friday evening, Clyburn, who is traveling overseas, issued a statement saying that he intended to remain neutral in the early race. Clyburn, who aides said spoke with Bill Clinton and Obama, said he wanted to make sure all candidates had an equal opportunity. But he also urged them to be careful in their language.
"I encourage the candidates to be sensitive about the words they use," Clyburn said. "This is an historic race for America to have such strong, diverse candidates vying for the Democratic nomination." Others continued to take issue with the remarks, including Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., an Obama supporter who was born in South Carolina.
"Following Barack Obama's victory in Iowa and historic voter turnout in New Hampshire," Jackson said in a statement, "the cynics unfortunately have stepped up their efforts to decry his uplifting message of hope and fundamental change."
Trying to tamp down the criticism, the Clinton campaign urged prominent black supporters to speak out on their behalf and remind the public of their long record of working for minority rights and benefits.
"I know of no government leadership couple about who I could say more," said Frederick James of Columbia, South Carolina, a retired bishop of the AME Church and civil rights advocate who has worked with both King and the Clintons.
The negative reaction was unusual for the Clintons, who have been extremely popular with blacks, the former president in particular. But Obama is becoming a rallying point for African-Americans as well, and some blacks worry that there will be efforts to undercut him on racial grounds.
"Voters have to decide for themselves what they think of this," said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declining to elaborate or discuss the matter further.
Bill Clinton, in his radio interview, disputed any notion that he was impugning Obama personally.
He said he was addressing a specific issue that, he believed, had not been given sufficient scrutiny: Obama's position on Iraq and a statement by Obama in 2004 that he could not say how he would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate, though he did not believe the case for war had been made.
Clinton said the 2004 view was at odds with Obama's position that he has, unlike Hillary Clinton, always been against the war.
"I said that story is a fairy tale," Clinton said. "Now that doesn't have anything to do with my respect for him as a person or his campaign. I have gone out of my way not to express any personal disrespect for him and his campaign."
Donna Brazile, a leading black Democrat who had criticized Clinton, on Friday appeared willing to accept his explanation.
"Bill Clinton is a soldier in the fields for people of color," Brazile said on CNN. "At this point, we are willing to let this lie."
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