The Obama camp today took notice of Hillary Clinton’s comment to a South Dakota newspaper editorial board meeting, where she said she would not drop out of the race and oddly observed, “Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.”

When the New York Post picked it up and called the comment “an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama,” the Obama camp responded. “Senator Clinton’s statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign,” a spokesman said in a statement, further escalating the story.

Fodder for at least a few more news cycles.

BRANDON, SD - Another example of the power of the Drudge Report today, as a NY Post story pointing out that Clinton brought up the assassination of Robert F Kennedy in 1968 during an editorial board meeting sent reporters traveling with Clinton into a frenzy.

Asked by South Dakota newspaper the Argus Leader why she didn’t buy the argument that the party was fracturing because of the prolonged contest, Clinton said “my husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June.”

“We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,” she continued. “You know i just dont understand it.”

Almost instantly, the Post story was circulated to the press corps via blackberry and Drudge, and reporters here at Clinton’s town hall meeting abandoned any pretense of listening to the event — flocking around the first Clinton flack they could find for a response to the quote.

After a brief off the record defense of Clinton’s comments, Campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee gave reporters what they were looking for. “She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer,” he said. “Any reading into it beyond that would be inaccurate.”

The ‘reading into it’ they might be worried about is speculation that Clinton would deliberately bring up talk of assassination to raise fears that, as an African American candidate, Obama might face the same danger as Kennedy. Before his big win in Iowa, many African Americans in the South cited the danger of assassination as a reason not to support Obama.

But Clinton has made a similar “long primaries are fine” argument before — once with a more oblique reference to the Kennedy assassination. “If you look at successful presidential campaigns, my husband didn’t get the nomination until June of 1992. I remember, tragically, Senator Kennedy won California near the end of that process,” she said at a DC fundraiser on May 7th. “It has often gone on. And we have a lot to work out here. Because we have to figure out who would be the stronger candidate.”

UPDATE: After the uproar, Clinton came to the TV cameras to make a brief statement on her remarks.

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