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WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton triggered a firestorm on Friday after bringing up the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy to justify her decision to prolong her long-shot White House campaign.
A day after a top supporter suggested Clinton was getting desperate and she compared a row over voided primaries in Michigan and Florida to the crisis in Zimbabwe, the former first lady sent new shock waves through the race.
Clinton told a newspaper board in South Dakota she could not understand calls for her to quit, arguing that history showed that some past nominating contests had gone on into June.
"My husband (Bill Clinton) did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary, somewhere in the middle of June, right?" Clinton said in an interview with the Argus Leader newspaper editorial board.
"We all remember, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California, I don't understand it," Clinton said.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton condemned the remarks."Senator Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," he said.
Clinton appeared to reference the Kennedy killing, at the end of the 1968 Democratic presidential race, to show that previous Democratic nominating contests have stretched well into June.
But referring to political assassinations is fraught with sensitivity, especially for supporters of Obama, who accepted Secret Service protection last year, long before the time it is offered to most presidential candidates, because of unspecified threats.
Clinton quickly launched a damage control effort, saying that the Kennedys had been in her thoughts, after Senator Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer this week.
"I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever," Clinton said.
"My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I'm honoured to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York."
On Thursday, Clinton brought up what for Democrats is the nightmare of the 2000 presidential recount debacle to demand the reinstatement of Florida and Michigan delegates.She also referred to political turmoil in Zimbabwe.
"People go through the motions of an election only to have it discarded and disregarded," she said.
"We're seeing that right now in Zimbabwe -- tragically an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people. So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote."
On Thursday, a top Clinton supporter, New York Governor David Paterson, told WAMC Northeast Public Radio that he thought that Clinton was showing "a little desperation" in the last throes of the nominating process which ends June 3.
The dust-up overshadowed the release of medical records by Republican White House pick John McCain, 71, as doctors said he had no health condition that would bar him from the presidency.
The Arizona senator, who turns 72 in August, would be the oldest president ever inaugurated for a first term and age issues will likely surface, especially if he faces a much younger Democratic opponent Obama, 46.
The McCain campaign also used the looming Memorial Day weekend, a traditional news black spot, to release his wife's 2006 tax return, which showed she made six million dollars.
Cindy McCain, a multi-millionaire who inherited a lucrative beer distributing firm, had previously refused to release what she said was "private" information, sparking calls from Democrats for transparency.
Obama meanwhile picked up endorsements of three more top party officials or superdelegates on Friday.
California Congressman Dennis Cardoza switched his allegiance from Clinton to Obama.
The Illinois senator also won the endorsement of another California lawmaker, Jim Costa, and Oregon superdelegate Jenny Greenleaf.
According to the independent RealClearPolitics website, Obama now leads Clinton by 1,965 delegates to 1,779, and is just 61 total delegates short of the winning post of 2,026 delegates. - AFP/vm
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