Clinton looks past assassination comments

HORMIGUEROS, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton's campaign prepared for its next big test as it tried on Sunday to move away from her controversial remarks about the assassination of Robert Kennedy 40 years ago.

The New York senator campaigned in Puerto Rico ahead of the island's Democratic presidential primary next Sunday, but before that she faces a major showdown -- possibly the final one -- when party officials meet to decide what to do with delegates from Florida and Michigan.

A decision on Saturday in her favor by the Democratic rules committee is key to her uphill fight with Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination at the party convention this summer and face Republican John McCain in the November election.

The two states, who were stripped of their convention delegates for violating party primary rules, are believed to be formulating plans to allow at least some of the delegates to be counted.

Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe was asked if Clinton would accept a decision that she did not particularly like.

"I am not saying that today," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "I'm saying let them make their decision and then we will determine."

Campaigning for a second day in Puerto Rico, where she is favored in Sunday's voting, Clinton accepted an invitation from a local television station to debate Obama on issues facing the island. "Anytime, anywhere," she said at a stop in Penuelas.

Puerto Ricans can help pick the Democratic nominee but the territory does not have the right to vote for president in November.

"If I had listened to those who had been talking the last several months, we would not been having this campaign in Puerto Rico today," she told a congregation of several hundred people in an evangelical church in Hormigueros.

Even as she tried to get the political discussion back to topics like the economy, her comments citing Robert Kennedy's assassination after winning the June 1968 California presidential primary were still the focus of political talk.

CONTEXT OF REMARKS

Writing in the New York Daily News, Clinton again explained she had mentioned the assassination in the historical context of a campaign that continued well into June. The former first lady said her remarks were taken out of context.

"I was deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for -- and everything I am fighting for in this election," she wrote.

Others saw the mere mention of assassination as a reminder of the role such killings have played in U.S. politics and that Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, has had Secret Service protection for more than year.

The Obama camp said it wanted to move on. "As far as we're concerned, this issue is done," David Axelrod, chief strategist for the Illinois senator, said on ABC's "This Week."

But even as both sides tried to tamp down the flap, some Clinton supporters pointed out that the Obama campaign had responded quickly on Friday after the New York senator had made the remarks to an editorial board in South Dakota.

McAuliffe accused the Obama group of "inflaming" the issue by issuing that response and then the "hyped-up press" took her comments out of context.

Clinton's supporters said Robert Kennedy's son understood what she meant and her words were not about Obama.

"They had nothing to do with Senator Obama," Clinton campaign adviser Howard Wolfson said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "And so there would be no reason for her to apologize to Senator Obama."

The controversy over her comments and the upcoming meeting of the rules committee overshadowed the last three nominating contests in Puerto Rico, where Clinton is favored, and on June 3 in Montana and South Dakota, where Obama is favored.

Obama delivered the commencement address at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, filling in for Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, Robert Kennedy's younger brother who recently was diagnosed with brain cancer.

"The topic of his speech today was common for a commencement, but one that nobody could discuss with more authority or inspiration than Ted Kennedy," Obama said. "And that is the topic of service to one's country -- a cause that is synonymous with his family's name and their legacy."

McCain was taking the weekend off by hosting a small group at his Sedona, Arizona, ranch that included three Republicans mentioned as possible vice presidential running mates -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

(Writing by David Wiessler; additional reporting by Caren Bohan with Obama and Charles Abbott in Washington; Editing by Jackie Frank)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)