 In March 2008 she gave an interview with the Daily Breeze in which she said : " If Obama was a white man , he would not be in this position . 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 justified the statements by referring to her own run for vice president . Echoing a statement she wrote about herself in 1988 , Ferraro said that " I was talking about historic candidacies and what I started off by saying ( was that ) if you go back to 1984 and look at my historic candidacy , which I had just talked about all these things , in 1984 , if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro , I would have never been chosen as a vice @-@ presidential candidate . It had nothing to do with my qualification . " Her comments resonated with some older white women , but generated an immediate backlash elsewhere . There was strong criticism and charges of racism from many supporters of Obama and Obama called them " patently absurd " . Clinton publicly expressed disagreement with Ferraro 's remarks , while Ferraro vehemently denied she was a racist . Again speaking to the Breeze , Ferraro responded to the attacks by saying : " I really think they 're attacking me because I 'm white . How 's that ? " Ferraro resigned from Clinton 's finance committee on March 12 , 2008 , two days after the firestorm began , saying that she didn 't want the Obama camp to use her comments to hurt Clinton 's campaign . 
