A key Obama supporter in North Carolina said it was "foreseeable" that an "irreparable breach" had been created between the black community and the Clintons as a byproduct of conduct during the Democratic campaign.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a African American Democrat from North Carolina, was asked on a conference call to respond to comments reported earlier in the day by Rep Jim Clyburn, in which he qualified former president Bill Clinton's recent primary conduct as "bizarre."
"Jim Clyburn is my very best friend in the U.S. Congress and he and I talk on and off the record every day of the week," said Butterfield, who predicted that the race in North Carolina would ultimately be decided by single-digits. "That said, I had not read his comments... But politics by its very nature is a competitive process and there have been times when Sen. Clinton has walked up to the line and there has been a time or two when she has stepped over the line in terms of her comments... Whether there is an irreparable breach, I don't think we are at the point right now where we are at an irreparable breach, but it is foreseeable and that is why I encourage civility."
In the days leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, Bill Clinton was quoted on a local radio station as blaming the Obama campaign for "playing the race card" on him. A day later, he denied that he had ever made such a remark. In an interview in Friday's New York Times, Clyburn responded to the episode, as well as other Clinton remarks, by saying: "black people are incensed over all of this."