As Candidates Agree, Aides Keep Sparring

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Campaign 2008: Gearing Up for Super Tuesday

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) surprise victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary, and Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) win that same night on the GOP side, threw the fights for the 2008 presidential party nominations wide open. Now, candidates focus on the upcoming primary and caucus states of Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada and Florida.

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Clinton advisers said that they were trying to simply undercut Obama on his merits. They added that it is far from certain that racially controversial attacks would work against Obama; if anything, they said, they feared the episode could backfire against them.

Both campaigns agreed they were entering uncharted territory at the presidential campaign level. Carville, a longtime Democratic operative who grew up in the racially charged politics of Louisiana, described the debate as wholly unfamiliar. Other Clinton allies have conveyed similar distress that two champions of civil rights have, in essence, been swept up in allegations of racial insensitivity.

"I'm shaken by the whole thing," Carville said.

The controversy grew from a pair of comments in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, when Bill Clinton called Obama's claims about his record on Iraq "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen," a comment that some black leaders interpreted as belittling Obama, and Hillary Clinton's statement on the roles of King and President Johnson in passing civil rights legislation, which she capped by saying: "It took a president to get it done."

Obama kept the debate alive Sunday when he weighed in for the first time, calling Clinton's comments on King and Johnson "unfortunate" and "ill-advised." But the fight turned toxic after Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, introduced Clinton at a South Carolina event with comments that seemed to both revive the issue of Obama's admitted past drug use and question the authenticity of the candidate's image as a "non-threatening" black man.

On the former issue, Johnson obliquely referenced what "Barack Obama was doing . . . in the neighborhood. I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book." Johnson later backtracked, insisting he was discussing Obama's activities as a community organizer.

Although Clinton officials -- and both Clinton and her husband, repeatedly and publicly -- have said that there is no effort to exploit racial divisions and essentially accused Obama of doing just that, they have not stepped in to sever ties with Johnson.

Clinton surrogates did not defend Johnson's statement, but they roundly ridiculed what they said were conspiracy theories spinning out of the Obama campaign.

"Bill Clinton is a really smart person. Senator Clinton is brilliant. They ain't that clever," Cleaver said.

The people who are injecting race into the campaign are overanalyzing poorly worded statements or meaningless slips, said House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.), a Clinton supporter who is African American.

"I'm angry because I'm looking for the white people that are insulting me, and I can't find them," Rangel said.

Staff writers Shailagh Murray and Peter Slevin contributed to this report.