With the first primaries just around the corner, the Democratic debates are beginning to heat up. A report on Tuesday's debate:
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards sharply challenged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's candor, consistency and judgment Tuesday in a televised debate that underscored her front-runner status two months before the first presidential primary votes.
Obama, the Illinois senator, began immediately, saying Clinton has changed her positions on the North American Free Trade Agreement, torture policies and the Iraq war. Leadership, he said, does not mean "changing positions whenever it's politically convenient."
Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, was even sharper at times, saying Clinton "defends a broken system that's corrupt in Washington, D.C." He stood by his earlier claim that she has engaged in "doubletalk."
Clinton, standing between the two men, largely shrugged off the remarks and defended her positions. She has been the focus of Republican candidates' "conversations and consternation," she said, because she is leading in the polls.
She said she has specific plans on Social Security, diplomacy and health care. "I have been standing against the Republicans, George Bush and Dick Cheney," she said, "and I will continue to do so, and I think Democrats know that."
But she avoided direct answers to several questions. The New York senator wouldn't say how she would address the fiscal crisis threatening Social Security, she declined to pledge whether she would stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon or say whether she supports giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Rather, she tried to turn every issue into an argument against President Bush.
And as further evidence that the debates are getting serious, the non-frontrunner candidates had to struggle to be heard at all:
Some candidates expressed frustration that most of the questions were directed to Clinton, Obama and Edwards. Seventeen minutes into the debate, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich had yet to get a question and blurted out, "Is this a debate here?" Minutes later, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson threw up his hands in protest that he hadn't been called on either and exchanged a frustrated glance with Kucinich.
The rubber will meet the road very soon with Iowa caucuses scheduled for Jan. 3 and the New Hampshire primary to be set for December 2007 or early January 2008
Update: Roger Simon says Clinton bombed in the debates:
PHILADELPHIA — We now know something that we did not know before: When Hillary Clinton has a bad night, she really has a bad night.
In a debate against six Democratic opponents at Drexel University here Tuesday, Clinton gave the worst performance of her entire campaign.
It was not just that her answer about whether illegal immigrants should be issued driver's licenses was at best incomprehensible and at worst misleading.
It was that for two hours she dodged and weaved, parsed and stonewalled.
And when it was over, both the Barack Obama and John Edwards campaigns signaled that in the weeks ahead they intend to hammer home a simple message: Hillary Clinton does not say what she means or mean what she says.
And she gave them plenty of ammunition Tuesday night.
Asked whether she still agrees with New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, Clinton launched into a long, complicated defense of it.
But when Chris Dodd attacked the idea a moment later, Clinton quickly said: “I did not say that it should be done.”
NBC’s Tim Russert, one of the debate moderators, jumped in and said to her: “You told (a) New Hampshire paper that it made a lot of sense. Do you support his plan?””You know, Tim,” Clinton replied, “this is where everybody plays ‘gotcha.’”
John Edwards immediately went for the jugular. “Unless I missed something,” he said, “Sen. Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes. America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them.”
And from the New York Post:
From the opening bell, the debate moderators tried stirring up a feisty bout by reminding Sen. Barack Obama of his trash talk over the weekend about going after Clinton mire aggressively.
But Obama needed a little more time to warm up.
"Well, first of all, I think some of this stuff gets overhyped," he said.
"This has been the most hyped fight since Rocky fought Apollo Creed," he added, referring to the great cinematic fight 30 years ago in which Rocky Balboa took down the reigning world champion in - of all places - Philadelphia.
When he did go after Clinton - about NAFTA, torture and the war in Iraq - it was only slightly more pointed than his feeble shots of the past.
As the night went on, it was John Edwards who made the strongest case for Democrats who are nearly as sick of the Clinton dynasty, with all its triangulating, as they are of the war and the Bushes. In the end, the most damage was inflicted by Clinton on herself.
She tied herself up in knots - in a way her opponents couldn't - with her non-answer about whether she favors giving driver's license to illegal aliens.
She must be the only New Yorker without an opinion on the plan (other than her colleague, Sen. Chuck Schumer).
Her evasiveness on the most talked-about issue in the state reminded everyone of the worst of husband Bill and what could be in store if another Clinton makes it to the White House.
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