WASHINGTON — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday lamented the rhetorical skirmishes that have recently turned the Democratic presidential campaign into a contest over race and gender.
"The forces of division have started to raise their ugly heads again," he said at a town hall meeting at a high school in Plainfield, Ind.
Obama did not name his rival, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or mention the recent string of barbs traded between the two campaigns. "I'm not here to cast blame or point fingers," he said.
In the last week, Obama distanced himself from his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, over statements of Wright's including that Clinton, as a woman of privilege in a country run by whites, could never understand blacks.
During the same week, Clinton accepted the resignation of former New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as a fundraiser, after Ferraro said she believed Obama would never had advanced so far in the presidential race if he had not been African American.
"We've got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country," Obama said, citing "pent-up anger and mistrust and bitterness." But, he added, "I continue to believe that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of things."
Noting his own ethnic background -- his mother was white and his father black -- Obama said: "As somebody who was born into a diverse family, as somebody who has little pieces of America all in me, I will not allow us to lose this moment."
As the crowd rose shouting, "Yes we can, yes we can," Obama said that it was important to speak up against inflammatory words like those of Wright, but equally important to come together.
"It is within our power to join together, to truly make a United States of America," he said. "That's the only way that we're going to deliver on the big issues we're facing in this country. We cannot solve healthcare divided. We cannot create an economy that works for everybody divided. We cannot fight terrorism divided. We cannot care for our veterans divided. We have to come together."
Clinton spent the day campaigning in Pennsylvania -- which holds its primary April 22 -- marching in St. Patrick's Day parades in Pittsburgh and Scranton. In Pittsburgh, she marched for two miles on streets lined with voters, some bearing signs that said "Clinton Country," others saying "O'Bama."
