Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Democratic primary campaign is facing sharp criticism following comments this week from key supporter and fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro, who told a California newspaper that Barack Obama is only successful as a candidate because he is a black man.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," Ferraro told The Daily Breeze of Torrance in an interview published last Friday. "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, in 1984, was the vice presidential running mate on the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale. They were not successful, but the ticket attracted the support of large numbers of loyal black voters.

Black political observers said Ferraro’s comments are evidence that the Clinton campaign is injecting race into a contest that had been race neutral. Both Clinton and Obama have attracted supporters from a variety of races and ethnicities in primaries held so far.

“They are injecting race into this campaign, while Sen. Obama has been race neutral,” said Kathi Stromile Golden, a political science professor at Mississippi Valley State University and executive director of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

“In making those comments, she dismissed the fact that Barack Obama is intelligent and has drawn support from across the spectrum,” Golden told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “This is truly an act of desperation. The next thing they will tell us is that women are voting for him because he is handsome."

“When you get down to it, race still matters in America," Golden said. "I believe it is part of the strategy -- that by injecting race into the picture, you may sway some white voters.”

But Ferraro is not backing off of her stance. Instead, after coming under fire, she contected the newspaper again and said she is being attacked because she is white.

"'Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,' Ferraro told The Daily Breeze. “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?'"

Ferraro said her statements were based on the fact that Obama received as much as 80 percent of the black vote in the primaries.

She told the paper, "'In all honesty, do you think that if he were a white male, there would be a reason for the black community to get excited for a historic first? Am I pointing out something that doesn't exist?'"

Ron Walters, a noted political scholar who is black, takes issue with Ferraro’s assessment of Obama’s success. 

“It’s not about race with Obama,” Walters told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “If it were only about race, then Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely Braun would have been presidents.”

Obama called Ferraro's comments "patently absurd."

"I don't think Geraldine Ferraro's comments have any place in our politics or in the Democratic Party. They are divisive. I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd," he told the Allentown Morning Call. "And I would expect that the same way those comments don't have a place in my campaign, they shouldn't have a place in Senator Clinton's either."

Clinton has not indicated that she will take any action regarding Ferraro’s comments. In response to a question about them, she said, "I do not agree with that," and later added, "It's regrettable that any of our supporters -- on both sides, because we both have this experience -- say things that kind of veer off into the personal."

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said Ferraro should be removed from her position with the Clinton campaign because of her comments. Last week, the Obama campaign lost one of its foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power, after she told a Scottish newspaper that Clinton was "a monster."

"The bottom-line is this, when you wink and nod at offensive statements, you're really sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes," Axelrod said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. "There's no other way to send a serious signal that you want to police the tone of this campaign. And if you don't do those things, then you are simply adding to the growing compendium of evidence that you really are encouraging that."

Boyce Watkins, a Syracuse University professor, said the comments from Ferraro are an embarrassment for the Clinton campaign. 

“There is no reason for Ferraro to have made these statements,” Watkins said. “It’s sad when we reach a point where women and minorities are doing comparisons to see who has experienced the worse oppression.”

Obama, Watkins said, can survive this recent wave of attacks, by handling them as he has handled his campaign.

“He has to continue to take the high road. He can not stoop to this level,” Watkins said. “He has created miracles right before our eyes with his success. But when you see a black man in this position, you wonder how long it will be before the other shoe drop. You know the dirt is coming.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.