They have come to their senses....
BY MICHAEL SAUL in Reno and HELEN KENNEDY in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, January 15th 2008, 4:00 AM
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama called a surprise truce Monday to halt increasingly ugly racial sniping that threatened to spin out of control and divide the Democratic Party.
"We have to bring our party together," Clinton told New York's building service workers union at a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration and rally in midtown.
"We may differ on minor matters, but when it comes to what is really important - we are family."
Clinton's last-minute appearance was added to dial down the controversy that began simmering with comments she made that were seen as slighting King. On Sunday, it boiled over when a Clinton backer made a not-so-veiled reference to Obama's admitted teenage drug use.
Although the union has endorsed Clinton, she was greeted by scattered boos from the largely black crowd, a sign of how nasty things were getting.
Campaigning in Nevada, Obama called a news conference to praise Clinton, saying he wanted to put an end to the sudden "unfortunate" tone in the Democratic contest.
"I think that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically and consistently been on the right side of civil rights issues. I think that they care about the African-American community," Obama said.
"I just want to make sure that this doesn't end up personal," he said. "We've got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness."
Clinton followed with a statement agreeing, saying, "Our party and our nation is bigger than this."
The ruckus began in New Hampshire last week, when Clinton, who was trying to tout herself as a doer and Obama as just a talker, said King made great speeches but Lyndon Johnson got civil rights legislation passed.
A front-page story in South Carolina's biggest newspaper quoted black voters - including elected leaders backing Clinton - as calling the comment an insult to King.
Clinton then accused Team Obama of "distorting" her meaning. He called that "ludicrous" and hit her for making an "ill-advised remark."
Just before calling a truce yesterday, Obama got in a last dig on CBS, saying, "This is a strategy on their part."
Analysts said the acrimony over race threatened to permanently hurt Clinton's popularity in the black community and destroy Obama's attempts to be seen as a postracial candidate.
But if both candidates wanted to bury the hatchet, Bill Clinton and Rep. Charles Rangel apparently didn't get the memo.
On New York 1's "Inside City Hall," Rangel, a top Clinton supporter, called Obama "absolutely stupid" for questioning Clinton's remarks and blamed him for injecting race into the debate.
Rangel also said it was a mistake for Obama to write about drugs, saying, "I guess he thought it might sell books."
Bill Clinton, who will be on the Rev. Al Sharpton's show today, did a round robin of black radio yesterday.
On Tom Joyner's syndicated program, he ranted about a media "double standard," called complaints about racial innuendo "classic Obama" and repeatedly talked over the host's attempts to ask questions.
On Roland Martin's show, he tried to counter anger over Black Entertainment Television billionaire Robert Johnson's Obama slam Sunday.
At a Clinton rally, Johnson praised her record going back to "when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book."
The tone of the remark clearly suggested he was talking about drugs, but Johnson later said he meant Obama's community organizing.
"I think we have to take it at his word," Bill Clinton said, but when the scoffing host pressed him, he backed down. "That's something between Bob Johnson and Barack Obama," he said finally.
Source:
NY Daily News
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