By GEOFF EARLE
May 23, 2008
Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.
"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.
Obama's camp immediately fired back.
"Sen. Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," Obama campaign spokesman said in a statement.
Clinton made her comments at a meeting with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader's editorial board while campaigning in South Dakota, where she complained that, "People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa."
Obama, the first African-American to advance so far in the race for the White House, has faced threats, sources have said.
Robert Kennedy, the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, was gunned down in 1968 after winning the California primary. He had been a hero on the left for his civil rights agenda and calls to end the war in Vietnam.
Barack Obama, who leads Clinton by nearly 200 delegates and has already secured a majority of pledged delegates, has been the subject of threats. Early in the campaign, the Secret Service gave him a security detail at the request of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois).
Clinton criticized an "urgency" to end the campaign prematurely, saying, "Historically, that makes no sense."
She later issued an apology for the remark.
"I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever," the former first lady said.
Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson defended the comments to The Post, "She was talking about the length of the race and using the '68 election as an example of how long the races in the past have gone -- she used her husband's race in the same vein."
