Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Sunday that Barack Obama’s campaign had injected racial tension into the presidential contest, saying he had distorted for political gain her comments about Martin Luther King’s role in the civil rights movement.

“This is an unfortunate story line the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully,” the former first lady said in a spirited appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I don’t think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it’s not about race.”

Clinton taped the show before appearances in South Carolina, whose Jan. 26 primary will be the first to include a significant representation of black voters. Blacks were 50 percent of primary voters in the state in 2004 and the number is expected to swell this time.

Both New York Sen. Clinton and her husband, the former president, have engaged in damage control this week after black leaders criticized their comments shortly before the New Hampshire primary last week.

The senator was quoted as saying King’s dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, while Bill Clinton said Illinois Sen. Obama was telling a “fairy tale” about his opposition to the Iraq war.

At an awards dinner Sunday in Atlanta celebrating black achievement, Michelle Obama said her husband is the person America needs in the White House right now and was critical of anyone who would “dismiss this moment as an illusion, a fairy tale.” He is the right candidate “not because of the color of his skin, but because of the quality and consistency of his character,” she said.

Former President Clinton has stressed he was referring to Obama’s record on the Iraq war, not on his effort to become the nation’s first black president.

As evidence the Obama campaign had pushed the story, Clinton advisers pointed to a memo written by an Obama staffer compiling examples of comments by Clinton and her surrogates that could be construed as racially insensitive. The memo later surfaced on a handful of political Web sites.

Obama later called Clinton’s accusations “ludicrous” and said he found Clinton’s comments about King to be ill-advised and unfortunate.

Another rival, John Edwards, added his voice to the chorus of criticism of Clinton’s comments about King.

“I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change that came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that,” Edwards told more than 200 people gathered at a predominantly black Baptist church in Sumter, S.C.

Economic plans

On another issue Sunday, Obama, saying the nation’s economic downturn makes it urgent to act now, urged the adoption of a short-term stimulus package he said would inject $75 billion in tax cuts and direct spending targeted at struggling homeowners, working families, seniors and the unemployed.

“We can’t wait for the next president to act,” Obama said in a release e-mailed to reporters. “I’m announcing a plan to jumpstart the economy by putting money in the pockets of those who need it most and who will spend it quickly.”

Obama called for providing an “immediate $250 tax cut for workers and their families,” a temporary $250 “bonus” in Social Security checks, aid he said should be repeated if the economy worsened.

His plan also called for increased aid to states, whose property tax revenue has been slashed by the housing bubble decline in home values. He called for an expansion of unemployment insurance.

Obama’s package was released two days after Clinton released an economic stimulus package of her own Friday. Her plan, worth $70 billion, placed more of an emphasis on helping families unable to make mortgage payments.

Former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, who spoke to reporters on behalf of the Obama campaign, said that by relying on tax cuts and Social Security bonuses, the Obama plan would have a greater stimulus effect than the Clinton proposal because it would get money into the hands of people more quickly.