Ferraro leaves Clinton campaign in flap over race

By Caren Bohan

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The only woman to run on a major U.S. party's White House ticket quit her role in Hillary Clinton's presidential bid on Wednesday after she ignited a controversy by saying front-runner Democrat Barack Obama was ahead because he is black.

Geraldine Ferraro, the trailblazing 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate, was a member of Clinton's finance committee and raised funds for the New York senator and former first lady, a campaign spokesman said.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, denounced Ferraro's comments as he made a campaign appearance in Chicago on Wednesday but said he did not think they were intended to be racist.

"I think that her comments were ridiculous. I think they were wrong-headed," Obama told a news conference after being endorsed by a group of high-ranking retired military officers.

"The notion that it is of great advantage to me to be an African American named Barack Obama and pursue the presidency, I think, is not a view that has been commonly shared by the general public," he said.

Obama, who has built up a strong lead in the state-by-state contests for the Democratic nomination to face Republican John McCain in November, denied Ferraro's charge that his campaign repeatedly responded to criticism by saying it was racially motivated.

"I'm always hesitant to throw around words like racist because I don't think she intended them that way," he said.

Ferraro ignited the flap when she told a California newspaper that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."