The latest controversy ripped between the two campaigns as primary voters in Mississippi cast their ballots in the latest installment of the dramatic Democratic White House race, with Obama tipped for another victory.
Ferraro, who sits on Clinton''s finance committee and is a surrogate speaker for her, sparked the latest firestorm when she was quoted by a California newspaper as saying: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."
Obama''s top strategist David Axelrod
told reporters in a conference call the comments were part of an "insidious pattern that needs to be addressed," bringing up previous racially tinged rows between the two camps.
"When you wink and nod at offensive statements you are really sending a signal that anything goes," he said.
"We call on the Clinton
campaign to take firmer action in this regard. (Ferraro) ought to be removed from those positions."
Ferraro was the first woman on a major
presidential ticket when she stood for vice president in 1984, alongside Democratic nominee Walter Mondale. Republican Ronald Reagan won reelection in a landslide.
There was no immediate comment on the Ferarro affair from the Clinton campaign, but communications chief Howard Wolfson told the Politico website: "We disagree with her."
In an interview Friday with the Daily Breeze newspaper, Ferraro was also quoted as saying that Obama''s success revealed the "very sexist" attitudes of the media.
"And if he was a woman -- of any color -- he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept," Ferraro said.
Another Obama advisor, foreign policy aide Susan Rice, earlier told MSNBC the comments were "outrageous and offensive" and worse than those of her campaign colleague Samantha Power who quit last week after branding Clinton a "monster."
The Democrats headed into the Mississippi primary, their final ballot clash before the more significant contest in Pennsylvania in six weeks, staring at potential deadlock all the way to their August nominating convention in Denver.
Polls gave the African-American Obama a wide lead in the southern state, where more than half of Democratic voters are black. The state was electing 33
delegates Tuesday, with voting to end at 7:00 pm (0000 GMT).
Obama leads by about 100 delegates after 45 Democratic contests, and has mocked the Clintons''
talk of a presidential "dream ticket" headed by the New York senator.
Republicans were also voting but John McCain has clinched enough delegates to be the party''s standard-bearer in the November presidential election, and the Arizona senator can afford to slot in a high-profile trip to Israel, Britain and France next week.
Karen Smith, 65, said it was the first time she had ever voted Democratic as she cast her ballot for Obama in West Biloxi on the hurricane-scarred Gulf Coast of Mississippi.
"He''s a very special person. I think our country needs him," she said.
Whitney Meyers, who has retired from the military, said "McCain would be more of the same" as he voted for Clinton.
Clinton saved her campaign with wins in Ohio and Texas last week, after questioning Obama''s readiness to be commander in chief, and the two camps dueled on the same issue again Tuesday.
Obama''s camp ridiculed her claims of a direct role in managing challenges such as Northern Ireland and Kosovo during her husband''s 1990s administration.
"Barack Obama does not use false charges and exaggerated claims to play politics with national security," his spokesman Bill Burton said.
But Clinton, in Pennsylvania, accused her rival of offering little more than rhetorical flourish.
"I''ve got to tell you, there''s a big difference between talk and action. But if you''re going to talk, then you ought to mean what you say so people can count on it," she said, accusing Obama of duplicity on trade and Iraq.
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