Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Clashing Over Racial Comments

The heat has been turned up in the race between Democratic presidential front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with both sides calling into question comments made surrounding issues dealing with race.

Obama has recently criticized Clinton over comments she made suggesting that Martin Luther King Jr. only saw his dream of racial equality achieved when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On a conference call with reporters Obama was quoted as saying, “I think it offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act.”

The Clinton campaign also felt the heat for a comment made by Bill Clinton in which the former President called Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war a “fairy tale.” That label was quickly blown up and made to appear as an attack on Obama’s presidential qualifications, a suggestion Bill Clinton quickly addressed when he explicitly said he was talking only about a particular issue and not the viability of the Obama campaign.

While seemingly on the defensive about the race issue Hillary Clinton also launched her own offensive, branding the Obama campaign as manipulators and hinting that there were those on his staff that looked to find comments that could be construed as racially insensitive. On Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press” Clinton noted, “This is an unfortunate story line the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully.”

With the South Carolina primary less than two weeks away both sides have been fighting to establish a strong presence in the state’s black communities. Despite the recent comments made surrounding race Clinton expressed a desire to shift back to the issues that define the 2008 election and she commented as much on Sunday saying,  “I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race.”

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