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Rival in race gaffe over Obama
01/02/2007 10:37 - (SA)
Washington - Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware on Wednesday joined the crowded field of Democratic contenders in the 2008 White House race, but his campaign quickly ran into controversy after his comments about a
potential rival, senator Barack Obama.
In an interview with the New York Observer published on the
day he announced his candidacy, Biden made personal comments
about Obama that critics said could be seen as racially
insensitive.
Biden, 64, and a six-term senator, is the eighth Democrat to enter the presidential race, and often registers in the low single digits in polls behind senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who
is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,"
Biden said in the Observer. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."
In a conference call with reporters, Biden tried to explain
his remarks, and said Obama understood what he was saying.
"This is a guy who has come along in a way that's captured
the imagination of the country in a way that no one else has.
That was the point of everything I was saying," Biden said.
Simply a blunder
Obama said he did not take Biden's remark personally but
noted that it was "obviously historically inaccurate".
In a statement, Obama, of Illinois, said: "African-American
presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm,
Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many
important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call
them inarticulate."
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who earned support and
won eight Democratic presidential primaries in 1984 and 1988,
said Biden simply made a blunder.
"It was a gaffe. It was not an intentional racial pejorative statement," Jackson told NBC News. "It could be interpreted that way. But it's not what he meant."
- Reuters
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