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Obama supporters shrug off Jesse Jackson comments

Reid Epstein

July 11, 2008

Jesse Jackson's televised comments about Barack Obama's anatomy elicited a series of shrugs from the presidential candidate's supporters at a midtown fundraiser yesterday.

Jane Mark, who runs an online advertising agency in Manhattan, predicted Jackson's comments won't have any influence because voters are dealing with more pressing concerns."I don't know how many people who can't buy gas will care," she said.

Jackson's comments, which included a vulgar reference about Obama caught by a Fox News microphone before he was to appear on television, drew an immediate and sharp response from the Obama campaign Wednesday night. Jackson also apologized for his remarks.

Though news of the comment spread Wednesday night, it went unmentioned in speeches from Obama and his chief primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, during the campaign fundraiser yesterday at the New York Hilton and Towers.

But Sandra Willett Jackson, a former Hillary Rodham Clinton volunteer who traveled from Washington, D.C. to see the two Democrats together in action, said Jackson's comments won't even register as a distraction.

"It will have no input," said Willett Jackson, 65. "It's a snip."