The fierce debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is threatening to boil over following the release of a new picture showing Mr Obama wearing traditional Somali dress during a visit to Kenya in 2006.
Obama’s campaign team claim that the picture sent to the Drudge Report website was circulated by Mrs Clinton’s staff but her team denied they had sanctioned its release. The row comes less than a week before the two go head to head in Primary Elections in Texas and Ohio, which could ultimately decide who runs for the White House.
Mr Obama,whose father came from Kenya is shown in the photograph wearing a white turban and a white robe presented to him by elders in the north-east of the country. The Drudge Report said the image had been circulated by “Clinton staffers” as a smear.
Addressing the issue in an interview with a Texas radio station, Obama said “I think the American people are saddened when they see these kind of politics”.
Supporters of Mrs Clinton have in the past suggested that certain aspects of the Illinois Senator’s past may not appeal to America’s mainstream voters. Last year, a campaign worker was dismissed for circulating an e-mail wrongly suggesting that Obama was a Muslim.
In the past week, tempers have frayed between the two rivals, with the former first lady attacking Obama for his lack of foreign policy experience. She has also accused him of plagiarism, by continually using quotes from speeches made by other politicians; a claim which Mr Obama described as ‘ludicrous’.
Speaking at the George Washington University, Mrs Clinton suggested that her rival would need a “foreign policy instruction manual” to keep the country safe if elected.
Mr Obama has won 11 consecutive primaries and caucuses in recent weeks, and is now seen as the Democratic front-runner. Some political analysts are suggesting that Clinton will need victories in both Texas and Ohio if she is to keep her alive her campaign to become the first female president.
