Washington: Geraldine Ferraro stepped down on Wednesday from an honourary post in Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign amid a controversy regarding her comments that Barack Obama wouldn't be succeeding in the presidential race if he weren't black.
Ferraro, who was the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 1984, notified Hillary by letter on Wednesday that she would no longer serve on Hillary's finance committee as "Honourary New York Leadership Council Chair."
Obama has called Ferraro's comments "ridiculous" and his campaign aides have called on Hillary to denounce the statement.
"I think they were wrong-headed," he said at a Chicago news conference.
"The notion that it is a 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."
In a letter to Hillary, first reported by CNN, Ferraro says: "Dear Clinton, I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what's at stake in this campaign. The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen. Thank you for everything you've done and continue to do to make this a better world for my children and grandchildren. You have my deep admiration and respect, Gerry."
Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Ferraro left the post on her own initiative.
The back-and-forth between the two Democratic trailblazers - Obama, seeking to be the nation's first black president, and Ferraro, who was the first woman on a major party presidential ticket in 1984 - continued for a second day as they made appearances on network and cable morning news programmes.
The controversy began when the national media picked up on comments Ferraro made in an interview last week with the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, California: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) 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."
Ferraro said she stands by her assertion that Obama's success in the Democratic campaign is due "in part" to his race.
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Obama, however, said that if someone in his campaign had suggested that Hillary Hillary "is where she is only because she is a woman" she would be offended.
Hillary has said she disagrees with Ferraro's remarks. In an interview with The Associated Press, she said, "It's regrettable that any of our supporters - on both sides, because we both have this experience - say things that kind of veer off into the personal."
Ferraro is the latest in a series of candidate surrogates whose comments have roiled both presidential campaigns. Last week, Obama adviser Samantha Power resigned after calling Hillary "a monster."
Ferraro, who was Walter Mondale's vice presidential running mate, said Wednesday that her remarks were not racist and had been taken out of context. She accused Obama's campaign of twisting her remarks to undercut his rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Hillary.
"I was talking about historic candidacies and what I started off by saying (was that) if you go back to 1984 and look at my historic candidacy, which I had just talked about all these things, in 1984 if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would have never been chosen as a vice presidential candidate," Ferraro said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "It had nothing to do with my qualification."
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