Clinton Invokes RFK Assassination

By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton invoked the memory of slain Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy as she explained her persistence in the Democratic race on Friday, saying that although the media and the Barack Obama campaign have been trying to usher her from the race, "historically, that makes no sense."

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," Clinton said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Argus Leader, a newspaper in South Dakota.

Her advisers later said she was using the historical reference to note that campaigns have stretched until the summer before, not to suggest that Obama might be assassinated. In the previous sentence, she had also noted that her husband's campaign in 1992 lasted until June as well.

But in a campaign in which voters have voiced concerns about the safety of the first African American front-runner in history, it was a surprising choice of words by Clinton, whose best hope for seizing the nomination now would be a major setback for Obama. Clinton has already faced harsh criticism for allegedly exacerbating racial divisions in the nominating process.

(Continued here, with video.)